Names
The river was called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, the Great Mohegan, by the Iroquois, and it was known as Muhheakantuck ("river that flows two ways") by the Lenape tribe who inhabited both banks of the lower portion of the river - all of present day New Jersey and the island of Manhattan.
An early name for the Hudson used by the Dutch was "Rio de Montaigne". Later, they generally termed it the "North River", the Delaware River being known as the "South River." The name "North River" was used in the New York City area up until the early 1900s, with limited use continuing until modern times. The term persists in radio communication among commercial shipping traffic, especially below Tappan Zee.
Read more about this topic: Hudson River
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“Our foreparents were mostly brought from West Africa.... We were brought to America and our foreparents were sold; white people bought them; white people changed their names ... my maiden name is supposed to be Townsend, but really, what is my maiden name? What is my name?”
—Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977)
“In a time of confusion and rapid change like the present, when terms are continually turning inside out and the names of things hardly keep their meaning from day to day, it’s not possible to write two honest paragraphs without stopping to take crossbearings on every one of the abstractions that were so well ranged in ornate marble niches in the minds of our fathers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words.... The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)