Eketāhuna – Meaning & Spelling

It’s Official!

In July 2020 the New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa officially gazetted Eketāhuna, spelt with a macron, as our town name. NZGB Gazettal 2020-ln3118.

Warren Chase, of Te Hika o Papauma, explains why it is important that the name Eketāhuna is spelt with a macron – “as our name is made up of two words – eke and tāhuna – eke means to come up on or above, tāhuna is sandbank and the word tāhuna, meaning sandbank, has a macron”. He said it would be really good to see the signs around Eketāhuna reflecting that.

In response Our Town is working on upgrading the signs around town and in our general usage.

If you are wanting fonts that include vowels with macrons you need a Latin Extended Font and a list of those with examples can be downloaded in pdf format (1.8mb) which includes display and print fonts, apple, windows, google and linux fonts.