The name Tenerife originates from the distant past and has undergone numerous transformations, shaped in part by oral tradition.
There are several lines of reasoning as to how the name Tenerife came to be, and in this article we look at where the name really originated. There are countless possibilities from which to choose one, but before we can do this, we need to list them. Only then can we make a choice.
What you may forget beforehand is that the name Canary and all derived nouns are named after the little bird of the same name, the canary. The beautiful and tiny songbird was named after the islands where it still occurs en masse in the wild.
Nieves posadas
According to some, the name comes from the fact that in the distant past, many large dogs lived on the island and the Guanches considered these animals sacred. A logical consequence could be that two dogs are depicted in the coat of arms of the Canary Islands.
Others speculate that those dogs were actually seals that once foraged in large numbers in the ocean around the Canary Islands but eventually chose a different biotope.
In the first century AD, Plinius el Viejo (the old) in his Naturalis Historia described and named the island Nivaria or Ninguaria where the Latin words nix and nivis are partially found, meaning snow. This is believed to refer to the nieves posadas on Mount Teide volcano.
Snow-capped peak
The Guanche people spoke of the island Achined or Achinech and the inhabitants of the neighbouring island of La Palma called the island Teneife, a name compounded with the Guanche words tene and ife, meaning mountain and white.
Seafarers and explorers who sailed past the islands to the new world coined the island with the name Nivaria because of the large snow-capped peak of Mount Teide, which was reminiscent of the Nevada, but no link to the contemporary name can be found here.
Tenerfiz
Later, the name ‘Insula del’inferno’ appeared in a French world atlas, which was spelt out as Isla del Infierno. This world map by Pedro Bontier and Juan Leverrier, two chaplains aboard boats led by Juan de Bethencourt and by Gadifer de la Salle saw and described the volcanic eruptions of Mount Teide on the island of Tenerife whose fire and smoke were reminiscent of hell.
Another possible explanation being sought is that the first mencey or king on Tenerife bore the name Gran Tinerfe and that he gave his name to that wonderful island. We read that in ancient writings pencilled down around 1350 in the book Conoscimiento and rewritten by 18th-century historians Juan Núñez de la Peña Arias and Tomás Marín de Cubas. There, the name Tenerfiz was used.
Solution
I must continue in the conditional tense. The first inhabitants, even before the Guanches arrived, were the Igwanciyen. These were Berbers and they called the island Tin Irifi which stands for ‘place of thirst’. We find quite a few names with a reference to ‘thirst’ in North Africa and especially in Morocco. Examples include Tinghir, Tinouchi and Tindouf.
So what is the correct original origin of the beautiful word ‘Tenerife’?
I don’t know either. Etymologically there are a few links, historically there are then other questionable explanations and folk lore provides yet another result.
Perhaps we will never know. The solution is in this text. Take your pick …!
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