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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 3 (June 1, 1934.)

Our Place Nomenclature

Our Place Nomenclature.

The first bulletin of the Honorary Geographic Board lately issued, gives much useful data about our New Zealand place names and their origin, in particular English names of South Island localities. Many misspelled Maori names are corrected.

The compiler has, however, not given the authority for any of the Maori names mentioned, and certain of the recommendations for the christening of places with new English names do not take into account the fact that good Maori names of those localities exist. There is a note on a now well-known name Moera, applied to one of our Wellington suburban districts, in which the bulletin says that the name is apparently of pakeha manufacture. This, however, is not so. Moera, which means “Sleeping in the Sun,” is an ancient name. The original locality to which it was applied, as the old Maoris of the Atiawa tribe told me many years ago, was the northward-looking slope where Marama Crescent now is, on the southern side of Wellington City, near the route to the Brooklyn hills. There was a cultivation and a small settlement there a century or so ago. In quite recent times the name was transferred to the new township on the Lower Hutt, which it fits very well, but its original scene should not be forgotten.