List of Australian place names of Aboriginal origin

Place names in Australia have names originating in the Australian Aboriginal languages for three main reasons:

  • Historically, white explorers and surveyors may have asked local Aboriginal people the name of a place, and named it accordingly. Where they did not ask, they may have heard the place was so-named. Due to language difficulties, the results were often misheard and misunderstood names, such as the name of the Yarra River. There are a suspicious number of place names which translate as pretty and resting place, which may imply European romanticism, and no doubt a good deal of mispronunciation and corruption in general.
  • Australian governments have officially named many places, particularly suburbs, after Aboriginal people or language groups, such as Aranda or Tullamarine.
  • The place name has always been called thus by Aboriginal people, and Aboriginal people still live in the area. This is particularly so for Aboriginal communities, such as Maningrida in the Northern Territory. This is more frequent where white settlement has been less dense, particularly in Central Australia and the Top End.
Satellite view of Australia's capital city, Canberra, whose name comes from a Ngunawal language word meaning "meeting place".

Welcome sign from Murwillumbah, New South Wales. The name derives from the Bandjalang word meaning "camping place".
Aboriginal names of suburbs of Brisbane, derived from the Turrbal language.

Watkin Tench, who arrived on the First Fleet, observed of the Aboriginal languages of present-day Sydney:

We were at first inclined to stigmatise this language as harsh and barbarous in its sounds. Their combinations of words in the manner they utter them, frequently convey such an effect. But if not only their proper names of men and places, but many of their phrases and a majority of their words, be simply and unconnectedly considered, they will be found to abound with vowels and to produce sounds sometimes mellifluous and sometimes sonorous. What ear can object to the names of Colbee (pronounced exactly as Colby is with us), Bereewan, Bondel, Imeerawanyee, Deedora, Wolarawaree, or Baneelon, among the men; or to Wereeweea, Gooreedeeana, Milba,[1] or Matilba, among the women? Parramatta, Gweea, Cameera, Cadi, and Memel, are names of places. The tribes derive their appellations from the places they inhabit. Thus Cemeeragal, means the men who reside in the bay of Cameera; Cadigal, those who reside in the bay of Cadi; and so of the others.[2]

Towns and suburbs

Regions and shires not named after town, river, etc.

Natural features

Islands
  • Kooragang Island

Mountains, ranges etc

Deserts

Caves
  • Bendethera
  • Bungonia
  • Colong
  • Coolamon
  • Jenolan
  • Tuglow
  • Yarrongobilly

Dams

Parks and forests

National parks

Nature reserves

State forests

State Conservation Areas

Highways and main roads

Non-Aboriginal place names that are assumed to be Aboriginal
  • Aramac (a corruption of the name Robert Ramsey Mackenzie, Premier of Queensland)
  • Bellingen (three towns in Germany carry this name)
  • Wangara ((Wan(neroo)) + (Gnan)gara)

Place names over which uncertainty exists
  • Bruthen – a Celtic place name used in Britain (now named Breidden), between Shropshire, England and Powys, Wales; also a Scott's Gaelic word meaning striped or checked; and in Cornish the word means freckled or speckled.
  • Bodalla – a corruption of "boat alley".
  • Narrabeen – a corruption of "narrow bean".
  • Traralgon
  • Ulladulla – a corruption of "holey dollar".
  • Warracknabeal
  • Watanobbi – could be from Watanabe, Japanese surname, or a description of the hill to which the word refers.

See also

References
  1. Tench reports that: Mrs. Johnson, wife of the chaplain of the settlement, was so pleased with this name that she christened her little girl, born in Port Jackson, Milba Maria Johnson
  2. Watkin Tench, The Settlement of Port Jackson, Chapter 17. Archived 26 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  3. "History of country town names". Landgate. n.d. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
  4. "History of metropolitan suburb names". Landgate. n.d. Archived from the original on 19 May 2009. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
  5. "Wokalup". Shire of Harvey. n.d. Archived from the original on 6 December 2014. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
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