names and their meanings

• Aoraki/Mount Cook - the Māori component means "Cloud Piercer" in the Kāi Tahu dialect. The English component is in honour of Captain James Cook.
• Aotearoa the common Māori name for New Zealand meaning Land of the Long White Cloud. ao: cloud, tea: white, roa: long.
• Auckland - in honour of George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, a patron of William Hobson
• Balfour - named after either a Waimea Company employee or a local surveyor.
• Birdling's Flat - named for the first Pākehā family to farm in the area, the Birdling family.
• Canterbury - after the city and archdiocese of Canterbury in England
• Christchurch - after Christ Church, one of the colleges of the University of Oxford in England.
• Cape Kidnappers - named after an attempt by local Māori to abduct one of the crew of Capt. James Cook's ship Endeavour in 1769.
• Coalgate - named as the "gateway" to coalfields in inland Canterbury.
• Cook Strait - in honour of Captain James Cook.
• Crooked River - named for its erratic, meandering path across plains near Lake Brunner.
• Dargaville - named after timber merchant and politician Joseph McMullen Dargaville (1837-1896).
• Dunedin - from the Scots Gaelic name for Edinburgh
• Eyreton and West Eyreton - for Edward John Eyre, who acted as lieutenant governor of the South Island when it was known as New Munster.
• Gore - for an early Governor of New Zealand, Sir Thomas Gore Browne.
• Haast - named after Julius von Haast, a German geologist knighted for his services to New Zealand geology.
• Hamilton - renamed after Captain Fane Charles Hamilton, commander of HMS Esk, who was killed in the battle of Gate Pa, Tauranga
• Hauraki Gulf - Māori for Northern wind
• Hawke's Bay - in honour of Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke of Towton
• Inchbonnie - Scottish for "beautiful island".
• Kerikeri - not definitively known. See Kerikeri#Origins and naming for several possibilities.
• King Country - district where the Māori King Movement led by King Tawhiao flourished in the 1860s
• Kirwee - named after Karwi, India by retired British Army colonel De Renzie Brett.
• Kohimarama - Māori for 'gathering in of light'.
• Levin - from a director of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company, which created the town to service its railway
• Manukau - may mean "wading birds", although it has been suggested that the name of the harbour after which the city is named was originally Manuka, a type of native tree
• Nelson - in honour of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
• Ngapara - dervied from the Maori name for the limestone plateaus in the area.
• Otago - Anglicised from the Māori name Otakou, a kainga (home) east of present-day Otago Harbour, translated either as "isolated village" or "place of red earth".
• Papatoetoe - papa means a flat, and toetoe is a very tall native grass
• Plimmerton - from John Plimmer, Wellington pioneer, director of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company, which created the seaside resort to help boost its railway; central Wellington has Plimmer's Steps.
• Porirua - meaning the two rising tides
• Pukerua Bay - puke: hill, rua: two - location is on a saddle between two hills
• Rakiura - "Land of the glowing skies" or "Burning Skies" referring to the Aurora Australis and unusual sunsets at high latitudes. [1], [2]
• Tasman - district named from the bay name, in honour of Dutchman Abel Tasman, commander of first European ship to sight the country. Also name of Mount Tasman, Tasman Glacier and Tasman National Park
• Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu "the place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as 'landeater,' played his flute to his loved one."
• Tauranga - a sheltered anchorage, or a resting place for waka, (canoes)
• Te Wai Pounamu (the South Island) - the greenstone water. The name evolved from the original Te Wahi Pounamu, meaning the greenstone place.
• Te Raekaihau Point - Te Rae-kai-hau - The literal meaning of the name is given as ‘the headland that eats the wind’, and is an example of a compound word in which a variation in syllable separation or grouping would alter the meaning; here the three elements are required, not two, as in ‘Rae-kaihau’ (see Best, 8, Pt.5, p.174). Te Rae-kai-hau is the ‘western headland of Lyall Bay. This is one of the original older] names of the Wellington area], the Rae-kaihau [sic] of Thorndon is a modern Ngāti-Awa name’ (Best, loc.cit.). [3]

• Waiheke Island - Waiheke means cascading or ebbing water.
• Waikato - named after the Waikato River, which itself means flowing water
• Whangarei - whanga: harbour, rei: cherished possession
• Whitianga - the crossing, or the ford
• Wellington - in honour of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
• Whitby - from the town of Whitby in Yorkshire England, home of James Cook
• Whitecliffs - named after terraced cliffs above the Selwyn River

External links and sources

• [4] An authoritative list of New Zealand placenames, used for NZ government maps, is available in various forms. The list does not cover their meanings.

• NZ Geographic Board Nga Pou Taunaha Aotearoa - Free download of 55,000 New Zealand placenames. Note: Special care is required, for instance the geographic coordinates are NOT the centroid of the placename, they are the lower left corner of the original label scan from the 260 series maps (1:50 000 Topographic hard copy).

• Reed, A.W. (1975). Place Names of New Zealand. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed.