page_title: Avon River / Ōtākaro
section_title: Naming
hierarchical_section_title: Avon River / Ōtākaro / Naming
caption_attribution_description: English: A punt on the River Avon in Christchurch, New Zealand.
context_page_description: The Avon River / Ōtākaro flows through the centre of the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, and out to an estuary, which it shares with the Heathcote River, the Avon Heathcote Estuary.
context_section_description: The Avon River was known by the Māori as Ōtākaro or Putare Kamutu. The Canterbury Association had planned to call it the Shakespere  [sic]. The river was given its current name by John Deans in 1848 to commemorate the Scottish Avon, which rises in the Ayrshire hills near what was his grandfathers' farm, Over Auchentiber. The Deans built their homestead adjacent to the Avon River where the suburb of Riccarton now lies. The river's name and that of the river which runs through Shakespeare's birthplace of Stratford-on-Avon is thus only coincidental, contrary to popular local belief.
  The name was officially altered to Avon River / Ōtākaro by the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998, one of many such changes under the Ngāi Tahu treaty settlement.
caption: Punting on the Avon River
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