What's in a name?

Origins of the names Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya

I thought I had written about it before, on one of our first visits to Papua, but I see I may have made a mistake...

Actually the roots of the name are multi-faceted:

In 1511, The Portuguese (Jorge de Meneses) called the island "Ilhas dos Papuas" (Island of the Fuzzy Hairs) from the Malay word 'papuwah' or "puah-puah" for a frizzled quality, like wool, because of the inhabitants' fuzzy hair.

Not many years later, the Spanish (Ynigo Ortiz de Reyes) provided the 'New Guinea', as the black skin of the inhabitants reminded them of Guinea, Africa.

The Indonesian half of the island of Papua New Guinea was given the name Irian Jaya when it became part of Indonesia in 1963 (although the name had been proposed since 1945).  'Irian' is actually from the Biak language (one of the local languages in the region), and means "hot land rising from the sea".  'Jaya' means "victorious" in Indonesian.

The province's name was changed back to West Papua on February 7 2007.