What’s in a name? A lot, when it comes to a nation’s identity.
Recognition is growing within Aotearoa New Zealand over the importance of te reo Māori (Māori language), and with it a renewed push to change the country’s official name – this time backed by a petition with 70,000 signatures.
The petition, which has sparked international interest from outlets such as NPR and The Wall Street Journal, was launched by the Māori party in September 2021 and has recently been submitted to parliament for consideration.
It calls on the government to change New Zealand’s official name to Aotearoa (pronounced ow-tear-roh-ah), a te reo Māori name for the country, and to “identify and officially restore the original te reo Māori names for all towns, cities and places right across the country” over the next five years, completing the process by 2026.
It is not the first time there have been calls for a name change.
But as New Zealand reckons with its colonial legacy, could this attempt gain wider support?
Where did the name New Zealand come from?
As with all colonised countries, naming played an important role in staking a claim on an area of land and acting as a nostalgic connection to home.
Sometimes, names were given due to mistaken geography, as was the case with Abel Tasman, who first sighted the already inhabited shores in 1642. He named the land Staten Land because he believed the land was connected to Isla de los Estados (Staten Island), now modern Argentina.
Sometime later a cartographer from the Dutch East India Company bestowed the name Nieuw Zeeland after the coastal province Zeeland in the Netherlands. The Dutch had very little to do with the country from then on, and when James Cook arrived in 1769 he anglicised the name to New Zealand.
Where does the name Aotearoa come from?
According to a group of University of Waikato academics writing in The Conversation, the precise origin of the name – which is commonly translated to “long white cloud” or “long bright world” – is not known.
There are indications it has been in use for a long time. Sir George Grey used Aotearoa in his writing in 1855 and 1857, it is referenced in Māori language newspapers, and the Māori Legal Corpus – a digitised collection of thousands of pages of legal texts in te reo Māori spanning 1829 to 2009 – mentions Aotearoa 2,748 times.
But not all Māori iwi (tribes) have the same connection to the name. The southern most iwi, Ngāi Tahu, has warned against rushing into a name change that may overlook the South Island.
Kaumatua (elder) Edward Ellison told RNZ a more commonly used title in the south was Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu, which encompassed both major land masses.
How successful is the petition likely to be?
The petition gathered just over 70,000 signatures, which co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said was “really telling that people are hungry for change”.
“Tangata whenua [people of the land] and tangata tiriti [people who support the Treaty of Waitangi] want to see themselves reflected.”
The party was “over the moon” with the level of public support for a name change.
The petition is now being considered by the petitions committee. However, should it progress further, it is likely to hit an impasse, with the National party and right-wing party ACT against a change.
National’s leader, Christopher Luxon, has suggested the issue should be decided by a referendum, but told 1 News there was unlikely to be widespread support. “I don’t think there’s much appetite for it at all.”
Ngarewa-Packer said a referendum would be unfair to Māori because they represent just 17% of the population, an imbalance caused by colonisation.
What is the public mood?
A name change would not require a huge leap of imagination for some – the name is increasingly being used by members of the public, within media, businesses and government and it features on New Zealand’s passport.
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said she uses both interchangeably and hopes the country will follow suit, but has not committed to an official name change.
“Whether or not we change it in law I don’t think changes the fact New Zealanders do increasingly refer to Aotearoa, and I think that’s a transition that has been welcomed.”
But a poll late last year shows the majority of New Zealanders may not be ready yet. Just over half of the respondents (58%) said they wanted to stick with the status quo, but the bloc of respondents who wanted Aotearoa somewhere in the name – be it solely (9%) or a combination of Aotearoa New Zealand (31%) was sizeable.
If the petition fails, what will that mean for future attempts?
Ngarewa-Packer says a name change is “not a matter of if, but when”.
“We’re continually pushing and reminding our nation to remember that it is one thing to make te reo Māori our official language, but it is another thing to commit to bringing it to life and the stories and histories attached.”
The Māori party has a lot of confidence in younger generations, Ngarewa-Packer said.
“There is more appetite for change, there is more maturing over the need to have a conversation about who we are and how we identify as a nation.”
