I guess they didn’t want people to end up calling it P Road
The name – meaning “to move swiftly in battle formation like the crab”
We can’t have anything cool in this country. We need more street names like this! I for one would be proud to live on the battle crab street.
What percentage of NZ could actually pronounce it though? It’s an absolute mouthful.
Papa-kanga-horo-horo. Eight syllables, pretty straightforward. My Māori is pretty trash, but after one read of it and a handful of times saying it out loud it’s pretty simple.
My advice to anyone complaining about it is to just say it out loud a few times. I guarantee that by the time you’ve said it to the moving company, the power company, the insurance company and your mum, you’ll have it locked down.
It also has the added bonus of being completely unique, so there’s no chance of your ambulance being dispatched to park terrace on the other side of town while you’re choking on park road.
Get over yourself, we can al do Ngāruawāhia well enough cant we?
I’m 50 this coming birthday, had little Te Reo at small white town NZ schools, lived in the UK for 1/3 of my adult life, and would have little issue with that as my street address
It’s a cool name, but I agree its too long for a street. Would make a good name for a park or a reserve or something in the area. To me an ideal street name is around 2 or 3 syllables. “Acacia” is a pretty crap name too though, better to pick something with a connection to the land and the people.
They mention they’re arranging a hui so hopefully a decent compromise can come from that.
Bah, I’ve been living on “Geschwister-Scholl-Straße” for years and Papakangahorohoro isn’t any more complicated really.
Probably not, unless you like to name your streets in German.
The siblings Scholl were part of the White Rose resistance group in WW2 and were decapitated (aged 21 and 24) for spreading anti war propaganda.
It’s a valid point that names for subdivisions can be very unoriginal, the worst is the nautical themed ones, there’s just so many.
If the people that live there don’t want the name then it should be changed. The council consulted the local iwi and got a stupid name about moving in a crab formation, I’m pretty sure we can swap that out for another name without cultural uproar.
well it’s a new subdivision that isn’t named yet, the local Iwi were consulted and put forth papakangahorohoro as the traditional name for the land
“Residents of a new Whakatāne subdivision have rejected the Māori name chosen by local iwi Ngāti Awa, calling it impractical and too long.”
“Under the council’s Road Naming and Property Addressing Policy, the subdivision developer has the responsibility to suggest appropriate names for roads, but consultation with relevant iwi is required.”
“In a meeting on August 18, council put forward the motion for approval of the road name “Papakangahorohoro Road”. Council staff wanted to proceed given the area had “huge cultural significance” to Ngati Awa. The motion was supported by mayor Victor Luca.”
Please read the article.
PS I have ad an address of lot xxx/yyy, suburb. before a ‘proper’ address was gazetted.
Can’t call it Acacia Avenue because it’s not an Avenue? Fine, call it Acacia Lane. Still has a common vowel sound.
That name is easy enough. I think people are over-reacting. Karangahape Road is fine and with English names not a single person in Wellington pronounces Majoribanks Street the same way (in fact, here are five streets in Wellington that are commonly mispronounced, all of which are English: https://wellington.govt.nz/news-and-events/news-and-information/our-wellington/2021/12/friday-five-street-names-mispronounced)
Not really, there’s been a push for people to use its full name and last time I was in Auckland everyone I spoke to did.
