Toronto means "trees standing in water."

It does not mean "meeting place" as popularly believed, says anthropologist John Steckley.

"Non-aboriginal knowledge of aboriginal languages is like a 5-year-old's knowledge of reproduction," he says. "They don't know, so they make up stuff."

"Toronto" is a Mohawk term, Steckley says. Originally, spelled "tkaronto" on early maps, the name was originally given to what is now called The Narrows, where Lake Simcoe empties into Lake Couchiching at Orillia.

It was where the Huron people and others for more than 4,000 years planted poles in the moving water to trap fish.

On successive maps, the name drifted southward and changed spelling.

In 1680, the name "Lac de Taronto" was given to what is now Lake Simcoe. In 1686, the canoe route from there to Lake Ontario was labelled "passage de Taronto."

And in the 1720s, a French fort east of the mouth of the Humber River – in what is now Toronto – was identified as "Fort Toronto."

Lieut.-Gov. John Graves Simcoe in 1793 renamed the area York, but in 1834 the older name was restored.