タヒチ語
In ancient times the island was called , meaning "created by the gods" in the local Tahitian dialect. This was often abbreviated meaning simply "first born". The Tahitian language and the English, French, or Dutch languages, each use a unique set of phonemes, so the spelling and pronunciation of the name changes as it passes from one language to another. Since Tahitian does not distinguish between the sounds [] and [], the sound represented by lies in between the two, while represents a sound not present in English similar in sound to [] and []. So could also be heard by English, French, or Dutch speakers as or . When explorer Jacob Roggeveen first landed on the island, he and his crew adopted the name , which has stood ever since.