The Names on the Signs in Santa Cruz
While navigating around Santa Cruz County, do you ever stop to wonder about the names on the signs? Names of streets, cities, mountains, rivers, schools and buildings can be clues in your search for local history. Beach Street and West Cliff Drive are pretty obvious, but what about Soquel, Cabrillo College and Graham Hill Road? For that matter, why is Santa Cruz called Santa Cruz? Following the clues requires a little detective work, but it can be fun. You’ll discover that local names come from many different groups of residents. Native Americans were, of course, the first to arrive here. Who were they and which names on the signs did they give us?
The Names on the Signs: the Ohlone
The native people of the central California coast are usually referred to today as the Ohlone. Until about 40 years ago, writers preferred the name Costanoan, from the Spanish word for coast. You can find Ohlone on a few signs around the S. F. Bay area, but none (that I’ve found) in Santa Cruz. Only three possible vestiges of local Ohlone words survive on Santa Cruz area signs: Aptos, Soquel and Zayante.
Because the Ohlone had no written language, these names are presumed to be phonetic renderings of Ohlone words. The Spanish sound of the words is due to the fact that the earliest written versions of the names were phonetic spellings recorded by Spanish-speaking explorers, mapmakers and missionaries. The words’ origins are not clear, and many alternative spellings have come and gone over the years. Historian Donald Clark found these variations on Aptos: Abtos, Avtos, Otosh, Autosh, Autos, Outos, Otas, Atos and Ortos.
The name Soquel emerged from similar spelling adventures. Early mission records wrote it as Osocales. Later English-speaking settlers (possibly during visits to local pubs) offered their own theories on the word’s origins. One of them goes like this: a local miner came into a tavern complaining that his new boots hurt his feet. He asked if anyone knew how he could make the boots more comfortable and received the advice, “soak ‘em”. “Soak, hell!” was his retort (this anecdote does not explain how the spelling of ‘soak-hell’ morphed into Soquel).
Several non-local Native American words have been imported from other parts of the country for use on our street signs. We have Dakota Avenue, Cherokee Lane, Delaware Avenue and others. Visitors from New England might be surprised that so few local Native American place-names have survived. That may be because the first Europeans in this area were Spanish, rather than British or French. That fact also accounts for the large number of Spanish names on local signs. That’s the subject for next time.
A note about sources: while trying to keep these posts concise, I'll also include acknowledgements of my sources and suggestions for further reading. The indispensible reference is Santa Cruz County Place Names, by Donald Thomas Clark. My only attempt to supplement the prodigious research of Mr. Clark is to include street names. Also, I'll stick to names that are still in use today.
Further Reading:
- Clark, Donald Thomas. Santa Cruz County Place Names (available at SCPL)
- Margolin, Malcolm. The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area (available at SCPL)
- Cartier, Robert. An Overview of Ohlone Culture (read online at SCPL website)
