Mount Taranaki - The Mountain's Name

The Mountain's Name

For many centuries the mountain was called Taranaki by Māori. Captain Cook named it Mount Egmont after John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, the First Lord of the Admiralty who promoted Cook's first voyage. It appeared as Mt Egmont on maps until 29 May 1986, when the Minister of Lands ruled that there would be two alternative and equal official names "Mount Taranaki" or "Mount Egmont". The Egmont name still applies to the national park that surrounds the peak. The Māori word tara means mountain peak, so to bilingual speakers the name Mount Taranaki is linguistically redundant (as are many other placenames such as Lake Rotoiti and Motutapu Island). Naki is thought to come from ngaki, meaning "shining", a reference to the snow-clad winter nature of the upper slopes. Geologists refer to it as the Egmont Volcano. The mountain had also been named Pic Mascarin by Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne as he made landfall off Taranaki on 25 March 1772. Du Fresne was unaware of Cook's earlier visit.