No, that’s not a name change for the airline taken over last year by Alaska Airlines. Hawaii’s biggest island is dropping part of its name and will now be officially just Hawaii, not Island of Hawaii.
The decision was made last month by the Hawaii Board on Geographic Names, which says it will align the name better with Hawaii’s other islands such as Kauai, Maui, Oahu, and others which do not have ‘island’ as part of their name.
That kind of ignores the original purpose of “Island of Hawaii,” which was to avoid confusion with “Territory of Hawaii” and later “State of Hawaii.” The ruling applies to official maps and government documents, but won’t stop the general public from calling it, as many do, “the Big Island.”
Even that can be confusing, some tourism industry people say, because many visitors just assume that the state’s capital and biggest city must be on its biggest island, and therefore assume that Oahu is ‘The Big Island.’
