Aotearoa is the Māori name for New Zealand. It was originally used by the Māori people in reference to only the North Island but, since the late 19th century, the word has come to refer to the country as a whole. Several meanings have been proposed for the name; the most popular translation usually given is "long white cloud", or variations thereof. This refers to the cloud formations which helped early Polynesian navigators find the country. Beginning in the late 20th century, Aotearoa is becoming widespread in the bilingual names of national organisations and institutions. Since the 1990s, it has been customary to sing the New Zealand national anthem, "God Defend New Zealand", in both Māori and English, exposing the name to a wider audience.
Etymology
The original meaning of Aotearoa is not known. The word can be broken up as: ao, tea and roa. It can also be broken up as Aotea = the name of one of the migratory canoes that travelled to New Zealand, and roa = long. One literal translation is ‘long white cloud’, commonly lengthened to ‘the land of the long white cloud’. Alternative translations are ‘long bright world’ or ‘land of abiding day’ referring to the length and quality of the New Zealand daylight.
Mythology
In some traditional stories, Aotearoa was the name of the canoe of the explorer Kupe, and he named the land after it. Kupe's wife Kuramārōtini was watching the horizon and called "He ao! He ao!". Other versions say the canoe was guided by a long white cloud in the course of the day and by a long bright cloud at night. On arrival, the sign of land to Kupe's crew was the long cloud hanging over it. The cloud caught Kupe's attention and he said "Surely is a point of land". Due to the cloud which greeted them, Kupe named the land Aotearoa.
Usage
It is not known when Māori began incorporating the name into their oral lore. Beginning in 1845, George Grey, Governor of New Zealand, spent some years amassing information from Māori regarding their legends and histories. He translated it into English, and in 1855 published a book called Polynesian Mythology And Ancient Traditional History Of The New Zealand Race. In a reference to Māui, the culture hero, Grey's translation of the Māori read as follows:
Thus died this Maui we have spoken of; but before he died he had children, and sons were born to him; some of his descendants yet live in Hawaiki, some in Aotearoa ; the greater part of his descendants remained in Hawaiki, but a few of them came here to Aotearoa.
The use of Aotearoa to refer to the whole country is a post-colonial custom. Before the period of contact with Europeans, Māori did not have a commonly-used name for the entire New Zealand archipelago. As late as the 1890s the name was used in reference to the North Island only; an example of this usage appeared in the first issue of Huia Tangata Kotahi, a Māori-language newspaper published on February 8, 1893. It contained the dedication on the front page, "He perehi tenei mo nga iwi Maori, katoa, o Aotearoa, mete Waipounamu", meaning "This is a publication for the Māori tribes of the North Island and the South Island". After the adoption of the name New Zealand by Europeans, one name used by Māori to denote the country as a whole was Niu Tireni, a respelling of New Zealand derived from an approximate pronunciation. The expanded meaning of the word became commonplace in the late 19th century. Aotearoa was used for the name of New Zealand in the 1878 translation of "God Defend New Zealand", by Judge Thomas Henry Smith of the Native Land Court—this translation is widely used today when the anthem is sung in Māori. Additionally, William Pember Reeves used Aotearoa to mean New Zealand in his history of the country published in 1898, The Long White Cloud Ao-tea-roa. uses Aotearoa alongside New Zealand. The combined ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’ has been popularised since the 1980s as a symbolic name to emphasise the bicultural elements of New Zealand society. Since the late 20th century Aotearoa is becoming widespread also in the bilingual names of national organisations, such as the National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. In 2015, to celebrate Māori Language Week, the Black Caps played under the name Aotearoa for their first match against Zimbabwe.
A petition initiated by David Chester was presented to Parliament on 13 April 2018, requesting legislation to change the name of New Zealand to Aotearoa – New Zealand. A petition initiated by Danny Tahau Jobe for a referendum on whether the official name of New Zealand should change to include Aotearoa, received 6,310 signatures. The petition was presented to Parliament by the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand co-leader Marama Davidson on 1 May 2019. The petitions were considered together by Parliament's Governance and Administration Select Committee which responded that it acknowledged the significance of the name “Aotearoa” and that it is increasingly being used to refer to New Zealand. The committee also noted that there are references throughout legislation to both “Aotearoa” and “New Zealand” and that while not legislated, the use of bilingual titles throughout Parliament and government agencies is common. "However, at present we do not consider that a legal name change, or a referendum on the same change, is needed", the committee said.
