# Talk:New Zealand place names

Why are Te Ika-a-Māui and Te Waka-a-Māui written with hyphens? We don't have New-Zealand, South-Island or Te Wai-Pounamu. If hyphens were to be used they should be consistent, ie, Te-Ika-a-Māui and Te-Waka-a-Māui. Can we take the hyphens out? Nurg (talk) 05:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure. I don't know why they were there in the first place. --Helenalex (talk) 00:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:New Zealand place names/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: dramatic (talk) 02:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I've never done a GA review, butr wanted to make some specific comments on the article content:dramatic (talk) 02:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


### Aspects missing
The article needs to cover some of the technicalities of New Zealand names, specifically:

Only a small percentage of place names are official and are listed in the New Zealand Gazetteer of Official Geographic Names [1] - the Gazetteer only lists places which have been named or renamed as a result of a decision by the New Zealand Geographic Board or as a result of an Act of Parliament. All other names are unofficial, established by usage or declaration by local authorities (in the case of suburbs and streets). These are documented by Land Information New Zealand via Topographic Maps. LINZ states:
Recorded names are names that have appeared in at least two publicly available authoritative publications or databases. They are unofficial because they were not assigned, altered, discontinued or approved by the NZGB. Many of the place names recorded on official maps are outside the NZGB's functions and jurisdiction, such as homesteads, light houses or tracks. Other recorded names, like Wellington, were commonly in use before the creation of the NZGB, and consequently have not yet been processed by the NZGB to become official.  You can search the New Zealand Place Names Database (archived) for recorded names.
The database mentioned includes every name included on a LINZ map until 31 October 2008.[2] Note that the coordinates given are those of the location of the name on the map, not the point coordinate of the feature itself. It is not clear how names recorded from 2009 onwards will be documented. Most major New Zealand towns are unofficial/recorded names, e.g. Auckland, Hamilton, Gisborne.
As a result of the above, the current section on unofficial names may need renaming to "Colloquial names". dramatic (talk) 02:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
I had a go at adding some of the above information into the article. I kept the heading unofficial in the end but added a paragraph about recorded names at the start. I also added more information about how the NZGB makes names official under post-colonial recognition AIRcorn (talk) 06:10, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Secondly, one of the atlases of New Zealand published in recent years mentions how the hinterland of central third the North Island has 90% of place names in Māori, a result of not having been opened up to European settlement until the time Māori names became acceptable. This is certainly worthy of inclusion if we can track down the source. dramatic (talk) 02:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

the first sentence of post-colonial recognition says "...although some [Maori names] persisted in the north and central regions of the North Island". This is sourced to Te Ara and adapted from this sentence "Māori names survived European settlement mostly in places with significant Māori populations in the central North Island and Northland." It would be good to change "some" to "90 percent", but I haven't found the source yet. I don't feel the current source gives enough information to quantify how many survived (I felt some was safe), but will keep looking a more specific source. AIRcorn (talk) 06:10, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi, I have been travelling for the last two weeks and internet time was more restricted than I expected. I only just realised someone had started this review so sorry for the late reply. All should be good now and I will see what I can do this weekend. AIRcorn (talk) 12:22, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:New Zealand place names/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Jezhotwells (talk) 12:46, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.
Disambiguations: none found
Linkrot: none found
Substantive review to follow within a day or so. Jezhotwells (talk) 12:47, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


### Checking against GA criteria
GA review (see here for criteria)
It is reasonably well written.
a (prose):  b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): 
Well written and organised
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR): 
References are to RS, no OR, references support the statements
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
Goo summary of the topic, with no concentration on trivia
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias: 

It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.: 

It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales):  b (appropriate use with suitable captions): 
Licensed and captioned
Overall:
Pass/Fail: 
No problems here, I am not sure why the previous review stalled. i am happy to list this. Congratulations! Jezhotwells (talk) 13:17, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The section on European place names is very confusing regarding the links - about half go to the place in New Zealand, the rest to the European place that was the origin of the name. You should pick which you want to link to and point all the links to there, or explicitly link to both for all places. Thryduulf (talk) 15:46, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

They should link to the New Zealand one. I will double check them. Thanks AIRcorn (talk) 22:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I have no knowledge of this ever actually being suggested as a slogan for the city, and that article linked as a citation not only significantly post-dates its usage, it doesn't actually contain anything relevant to the point. I know personally that people have been calling it Hamiltron and The City of the Future since the mid-90s at least - when I was a student at Waikato in 99-03 it was already firmly established. I'm pretty confident it's just an ironic nickname, because Hamilton's an arse-backward, over-grown farming town and damned proud of it. If anyone's got any actual evidence, though, that'd be awesome.--115.30.72.24 (talk) 10:50, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Here we go[3]. A radio station apparently coined it in the 90's. There is the from Te Ara[4] too. These are both better than the current ref, if someone wants to change it go ahead. If not I will have a go tomorrow. AIRcorn (talk) 12:09, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

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This does not read like a 'good article' to me. Should that status be removed until it is further improved? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 13:35, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

@Roger 8 Roger: Is this still an issue? If so could you be more specific please so i can fix it. Aircorn (talk) 18:41, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Having had a quick glance, it still does not appear to meet that standard, although I notice a large number of references. I am not sure how to improve it though and I may not be the best person to ask. One point though is that I think there should be a section about the placename related legislation that has occurred in recent times. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:37, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Not completely following. Number of references don't have much to do with prose quality and I am not noticing any issues with either that necessitate failing the Good Article criteris. Can you give me a link to this new legislation or an article discussing it so I can add it? Could probably mention something about the use of macrons, but other than that not seeing anything that is really missing. Aircorn (talk) 04:13, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
I meant this [5] legislation, and the NZGB, but having another quick look I can see that it does get a mention after all. Since making that initial comment some time ago my interest in this topic has waned somewhat which is why I may not be the best person to comment in any detail. I agree that the article does appear to meet many of the standards required for 'good article' status, beyond just having plenty of references. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:32, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Here is an observation, that may have been made before, but no harm in repeating it. The titles must meet all these wp:CRITERIA:
Recognisabilty (Generally NO)
Naturalness (Generally NO)
Precision (Generally NO)
Concision (No)
Consistency (N0)
However, under WP:ON ‘’The phrase "common name" (WP:COMMONNAME) has existed since before the change of the policy from "Naming conventions" to "Article title" and it does not mean the vernacular name (as described in scientific literature), instead it is a shorthand for the commonly recognizable name as shown by the prevalence of the name in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources (WP:UCRN). Following UCRN means that the article titles for most flora article are the scientific names not the vernacular names.’’. This stresses the importance that a common name means as used in reliable secondary sources, as opposed to man in the street usage. Therefore, does this not mean that it does not really matter that nobody ever uses these artificially created dual names, if a significant majority of reliable secondary sources use them. That brings us back to the independent reliability of sources that use dual names because they have to by law. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:05, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Although a NZ Geographic article has been written about names such as Mount Awkward, Mount Misery, Mount Bitterness, Mount Hopeless, Mount Awful, Mount Dreadful and Mount Horrible and it mentions that a book was also written, the topic has no mention in this article. There are also many more, such as Mount Damfool and Depression Stream. Should there be mention of these and, if so, should it be a separate section, or part of European names? The Geographic article speculates on the origins of the names. Is there any evidence as to how they arose? Johnragla (talk) 06:10, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

It possibly warrants a sentence or two in the "descriptive" part of the "European place names" section. Something else possibly worth noting would be "event" type names such as "Chasland's Mistake" (which is a surprising omission from that article). For something allegedly published "a few years ago" at the time of publication (2009) there is almost nothing findable about it on the internet - the most relevant reference is from 2011 (two years later) which implies that it was a single map, not a book (Scoop press release) Daveosaurus (talk) 06:56, 7 November 2025 (UTC)