page_title: New Zealand place names
section_title: Māori names
hierarchical_section_title: New Zealand place names / Māori names
context_page_description: Most New Zealand place names have Māori or British origins. Both groups used names to commemorate notable people, events, places from their homeland, and their ships, or to describe the surrounding area. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the whole of New Zealand before the arrival of Europeans, but post-colonisation the name Aotearoa has been used to refer to the whole country. Dutch cartographers named the islands Nova Zeelandia, the Latin translation of the Dutch Nieuw Zeeland. By the time of British exploration, the country's name was anglicised to New Zealand.
  Many of the early Māori names were replaced by Europeans during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Government amendments in 1894 and the establishment of the New Zealand Geographic Board in the mid-1940s led to the encouragement of original Māori names, although differing spellings and anglicised pronunciations persisted. Many names now have alternative or dual English and Māori names or, in a few rare cases, dual Māori names or dual English names. Most names have never been made official, but if they are mentioned in authoritative publications they are considered recorded names.
context_section_description: Many Māori place names possess either historical or mythological significance. Their meaning is not always apparent from literal translations, but some interpretations have passed down through oral tradition. Before the arrivals of Europeans, place names often commemorated notable or historical incidents, described features of the location or  derived from traditional Hawaiki names or myths. After European arrival many locations became known under names representing Māori versions of European words or poorly-pronounced contractions of the original Māori names.
  Early Māori explorers such as Kupe, Ngahue, and Toi named many of New Zealand's coastal features. Like later European explorers, they named things after themselves, their family members and events that occurred at the newly-discovered locations. Kahumatamomoe named Manukau Harbour after a manuka stake that he used to claim ownership of the area, and Kaipara Harbour after the para fern he ate there (kai means food). The Māori name for Wellington Harbour, Te Whanganui a Tara (the great harbour of Tara), derives from Tara, a grandson of Kupe and ancestor of several local iwi. Names from other islands visited during the Polynesian migrations have become attached to some New Zealand landmarks, for example Raratoka Island (from Rarotonga) and Tawhiti (from Tahiti). Whakatane, Rangitoto Island, Taupo, Urewera, Ngongotahā, and Tikitapu all commemorate incidents that occurred during the early arrivals, many of which are now forgotten.
  Maketu and Mount Moehau are two of the few remaining names connected to places in Hawaiki. The use of Polynesian mythology in names is more apparent, with Tāne (the forest god) lending his name to Ōtāne and Taneatua, among others.
  Descriptive words often occur as part of a place name: widely used elements include:
  ara (path, road)
  hau (wind)
  maunga (mountain)
  moana" (sea, ocean)
  nui (big)
  one (mud, sand, beach)
  puke (hill)
  roto (lake)
  wai (water)
  whanga (bay)
  whenua (land, country)
  Thus Whanganui means "wide river-mouth" and Waikanae indicates good waters for catching kanae, or flathead mullet.
  European arrivals exposed Māori to Christianity, leading to the settlements of Hiruharama, Petane and Hamaria – named after the biblical Jerusalem, Bethany and Samaria respectively. The names of the Rānana, Ātene and Karaponia settlements represent Māori-language approximations  of London, Athens and California.
  Moriori, descendants of Māori, migrated to the Chatham Islands (off the eastern coasts of mainland New Zealand) c. 1500 CE and named them Rēkohu (Misty Sun). Sometime before 1835 mainland Māori settled at Rēkohu and confused the name of the settlement, Wharekauri, with the name of the main island. It has been known as Wharekauri to Māori ever since.
caption: Captain James Cook's map of New Zealand, showing a mixture of Māori names and names Cook bestowed himself
exif: {"Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "44", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5982"}