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Where Did Toronto Get Its Name?
Please don’t call it the 6ix
Hogtown, Muddy York, regular York, Toronto the Good, TO, The T-dot, and most loathsome of all, the 6ix (thanks Drake, you hack). This city I live in has been called a lot of things. But where does its real name come from?
It’s a belief widely held by people who hold beliefs about such things, that Toronto is derived from a Huron word for meeting place. This seems reasonable on the face of it; after all, the Hurons used to live in these parts and they certainly could have met here.
To paraphrase H.L Mencken, for every question there’s an answer that’s logical, obvious, and wrong. This particular error can be attributed to the Victorian clergyman and historian Henry Scadding, who believed the name Toronto came from the Huron word “toronton,” meaning “abundance” or “plenty” (as in “plenty of people,” from which Scadding derived “meeting place”). Scadding’s grasp of indigenous languages was limited at best, and there was no real evidence to support his assertion. Still, it became firmly rooted in popular culture and is widely believed today in spite of frequent debunkings by online know-it-alls.
In fact, it’s virtually certain that the name “Toronto” is rooted in the Mohawk language and in a location about 130 kilometres north of the present city. Historical evidence…
