Why Are Māori Names Not as Common?
How Colonisation Changed Identity, Language, and Belonging
By Dr Harpreet Singh | drhsinghnz.substack.com | FB: @DrHSinghNZ | BSky: @DrHSinghNZ | IG: @DrHSinghNZ
Author’s note: The pressure to carry an English name has been a pervasive part of my life. Don’t have a “funny” name, make it easier for people to pronounce, smooth yourself out so others feel comfortable. I’ve felt how a name can be mocked and how it can quietly close doors, making jobs harder to get before you even arrive. This article is personal to me because I, too, have anglicised my name in the past in the hope of being accepted and understood.
Māori naming was traditionally different from European naming
Before colonisation, Māori naming was closely tied to whakapapa, events, places, ancestors, mana, memory, and identity. A person might receive a name connected to circumstances surrounding birth, an important event, an ancestor, or a later-life experience. Names could also change over a lifetime to mark significant events or relationships. A Massey University thesis on Māori naming argues that Māori naming practices underwent major change through colonisation and missionisation, which “virtually overturn[ed]” older naming practices.
European naming, by contrast, usually required a fixed first-name-plus-surname model. Māori naming did not always fit that pattern, especially where identity was expressed through whakapapa, hapū, iwi, and relational connections rather than a permanent family surname. Sources on Māori surnames note that Western-style surnames became more common after European contact, especially once formal records such as birth, death, and marriage certificates were required.
Missionaries and Christianity encouraged Biblical and English names
Christian missionaries had a strong influence on Māori naming. Baptism often came with the adoption of Christian names, for example, Māori forms of Biblical or European names such as Hōne for John, Wiremu for William, Rāwiri for David, Mikaere for Michael, Mere for Mary, and Hemi for James. The impact was not only religious but cultural: naming became linked to conversion, schooling, literacy, church records, and colonial administration.
This does not mean these names are “less Māori” in everyday identity; many became deeply embedded in Māori communities, but it does show how colonisation reshaped what counted as a normal or acceptable registered name.
Colonial administration required fixed legal names
As the colonial state expanded, Māori increasingly had to interact with courts, land records, schools, churches, employment systems, military records, and birth/death/marriage registrations. These systems preferred and often required stable, written, European-style names. Māori, therefore, had practical pressure to adopt fixed surnames, often based on an ancestor’s name, a father’s name, a transliteration, or an English surname.
This mattered because Māori names were not just personal labels; they carried histories. When official systems simplified, misspelt, translated, or replaced names, they also disrupted links to whakapapa, whenua, and collective memory.
Te reo Māori suppression reduced Māori names’ everyday use
Colonisation also damaged the wider language environment. If te reo Māori is marginalised, Māori names become harder for institutions and the public to pronounce, spell, respect, or transmit. Oranga Tamariki’s overview of colonisation notes that it eroded Māori social structures, language, and mātauranga Māori throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
In schooling, especially, generations of Māori experienced pressure to use English and suppress te reo. That made some whānau choose English names to help children avoid discrimination, mispronunciation, punishment, or social stigma. So the lower visibility of Māori names reflects not a lack of Māori attachment to naming, but the effects of unequal power.
Place names show the same colonial pattern
The same thing happened to the whenua. European explorers, surveyors, and settlers renamed many places, replacing or sidelining older Māori names on maps and in official use. As Europeans surveyed and settled the land, they replaced many older Māori names with European ones, though some Māori names have survived or been restored.
This is important because personal names and place names are connected in te ao Māori. Names locate people in whakapapa and whenua. Renaming land was therefore part of a wider colonial process of making Aotearoa appear more British and less Māori.
Why it matters
Māori names are not just words. They carry whakapapa, whenua, and memory. When colonisation replaced or reshaped those names, it disrupted how Māori identity could be expressed, recognised, and recorded. Understanding this history shows that the decline in Māori names was never about preference or fashion. It was about colonial power over Māori identity. Reclaiming Māori personal and place names today is therefore not a small symbolic gesture. It is a way of restoring language, honouring ancestors, and insisting that Māori presence and history remain visible in Aotearoa.