Name
Lamma was named after the shape of the island which looks like the fork of a tree, or the Chinese character 丫 (pronounced "ah" in Cantonese, and which has the same shape as the letter Y), and Naam meaning "south" (/l/ is a lazy sound of /n/). Lamma (南丫) thus means literally "southern Y". The name can also mean "Southern Peninsula Island".
The original name of the island is Pok Liu. The island is shaped like two Y in opposite direction. The north Y is Pak A (北丫) and south Y is Nam A (南丫). When the British first came to the island, they used the colloquial pronunciation of Nam Ah, i.e. "Lam Ah (Lamma)" as the name of the island. The Chinese names of East Lamma Channel (東博寮海峽) and West Lamma Channel (西博寮海峽) are still formed from Pok Liu instead of Nam A. Another folk etymology says the name came from a former lamaist monastery on the island.
Read more about this topic: Lamma Island
Famous quotes containing the word name:
“Name any name and then remember everybody you ever knew who bore than name. Are they all alike. I think so.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“What is it? a learned man
Could give it a clumsy name.
Let him name it who can,
The beauty would be the same.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)