1. Agana Heights sits just above the capital city ofHagta and was a resettlement community for manyresidents of old Hagta after World War II ended in1944. Agana Heights is one of two villages (the other isSanta Rita), that does not derive its name from aChamorro word. Before it was a village, many say the area was calledTutujan. Some village elders say that the place nameTutujan is derived from the Chamorroword tutuhon which means to begin, start, or set out.However, other elders say the tutuhan name is derivedfrom the name of a trail along the cliffline between FortSanta Agueda (also known as Fort Apugan) andGovernment House.http://guampedia.com

2. The village of Agat may have been named bythe first clan who came to settle in the areafrom the northern part of Guam. It is alsopossible that the village name Hagat originallywas derived from the word Aga, which is theChamorro name of the Marianas Crow whichis a large black bird that makes the soundaga while flying low over the jungle. Thevillages name, too, could be derived from theChamorro word hga, meaning blood.http://guampedia.com 3. The village of Asan probably derives its name from theword Hassan, which means scarce or rare inChamorro. There are several therories of the origin ofthe name of the sub-community of Maina, whichcomes from the Chamrro word ina (to illuminate orshine on). Some of the variations on the village namesorigin are hunters in the area who hunted by the lightof a torch and then saw their prey by the light of thattorch; infants brought at sunrise to baptismal massesat which Catholics believe a person receives the lightof God; and the moon that rises to illuminate the entirevalley in which Maina is situated.Asan-Maina(Assan-Maina)http://guampedia.com 4. Barrigada comes from the Chamorro word meaning flank(the side of the stomach). The first written mention of the wordBarrigada comes from Recollect Father Aniceto Ibanez delCarmen, who served on Guam for forty years and in 1866,referred to people hunting deer in the region calledBarrigadan Tiyan. A 1902 map, drawn with the assistance of Chamorro priestFather Jose Palomo y Torres, shows two names for the largehill that dominates central Guam: Mt. Tuyan or La Barrigada.Both names fit well with the ancient Chamorro creation storyof Puntan and Fuuna, which tells that the island was formedby the body of Fuuna. Both the tuyan stomach and thebarrigada flank are located in the middle of the body.http://guampedia.com 5. Chalan Pago is a Chamorro word that means Pago Road.Chalan Pago referred to the area traveled through to getfrom Hagta to Pago, which may lend to the naming of thearea, which is covered with Pago trees (hibiscus tiliaceus).Pago was one of the reduccion villages established by FatherDiego Lus de San Vitores, who established the Catholicmission in the Marianas in the 1670s. Chamorros fromthroughout the Mariana Islands archipelago were resettledand concentrated into villages on Guam to enhancemissionaries efforts. Ordot village seems to have originated in the nineteenthcentury. The village name is derived from the Chamorroword otdot, which means ant. Some residents believe thatthe name was given to the area because the type of soil thereis attractive to certain types of ants.http://guampedia.com 6. The origin of the village name Dededo, Dedidu inChamorro, may come from the practice ofmeasuring using fingers. The Spanish word forfinger is dedo. It can be theorized that someonemeasured out the original village this way. Anotherpossibility is that the word dededo is a version ofthe word dedeggo, which means heel of thefoot, or that it comes from the word deggo whichmeans to walk on tiptoes.http://guampedia.com 7. Hagta is derived from the word hagameaning blood. It is believed that thisvillage came about due to the bloodlines ofthe families that established the village.http://guampedia.com 8. The villages Chamorro name, Inalhan,probably refers to the la or large wovencoconut-leaf harvest baskets for which thevillage was noted. The name could also bederived from the word hlla, meaning to pullsomething or move something with a ropetied to it. In written historical documents, theSpanish changed all the ls in Chamorrowords to rs, thus changing the villages nameto Inarajan, which is the name officiallyrecognized today.http://guampedia.com 9. Mangilao derives its name from theword ilao, which means to look forsomething. In the past, hunters andfishermen would go to Mangilao to searchfor crabs, deer, wild pigs, and fish.http://guampedia.com 10. Always known as a place for fishing, thevillages original name, Malesso, derives fromthe Chamorro word lesso, a juvenile stage inthe growth of rabbit fish. Juvenile rabbit fish,ormahak in Chamorro, run in schools atcertain times of the year in the bays and inletsof the village. Their arrival is always anoccasion of great excitement, as groups ofpeople large and small work nets to gatherthe local delicacy.http://guampedia.com 11. The three villages of Mongmong, Toto and Maite comprise one municipality. There are various theories about how the villages got their names. They aresaid to relate to the Legend of Puntan and Fuuna, the Chamorro creationmyth of the world. When the god Puntan was about to die, he and his sisterthe goddess Fuuna devised a plan that would use his body to form theworld and the elements of the sky: his eyes were to become the sun and themoon, his body to become the earth. Momongmong, later to become Mongmong, describes the sound of aheartbeat. Toto means to recline and Maite, or maette, means to nudge ortouch another person with ones hands or other parts of the body. Mongmong also may refer to another sound. Before World War II, novenas(a devotion of nine days of prayer) were held in the village to pray for rainduring the dry season. People would walk from Hagta and had to stepover potholes in the trail made by cattle during the rainy season. The dirtridges of the holes would crumble as they walked, making a soundcalled mongmong in Chamorro. Toto may also have gotten its name from a fight between two ancient districtwarriors. The loser was left lying on the ground face up, which iscalled toto (to recline).http://guampedia.com 12. The village name Pago is likely derived from the Chamorroword pago (pagu), which is the wild hibiscus plant that growsabundantly in this area. The bark of this species of hibiscustraditionally was used to make ropes. The combination ofriver and ocean resources made the area ideal for fishing aswell as plant cultivation including yams, taro and mangroveplants. According to Chamorro legend, the bay was formed bya giant fish that ate the central part of the island, thusexplaining the almost hour glass shape we see today. In thelegend, the women of Pago were known to scent and colortheir hair with lemon peels. When lemon peels were found inneighboring Agana Bay, the women in Agana knew the giantfish had bored an undersea tunnel beneath theisland. Eventually, the fish was captured by the Agana womenwho wove a giant net from their hair.http://guampedia.com 13. Most Guam residents know the village of Pitifrom what they see along Marine Corps Drive,Guams main thoroughfare. The first noticeablelandmark in the village along Marine Corps Drivewhen heading southbound is the Piti UnderwaterObservatory. The observatory juts out from thecoastline into the ocean. The village name isprobably derived from the Chamorro word puti,which means to hurt or ache.http://guampedia.com 14. Santa Rita is one of two villages that does nothave a name derived from the Chamorrolanguage. The other is Tamuning, a Carolinianword given to the area that was a temporarysettlement for Carolinians in the seventeenthcentury. Santa Ritas village name is taken from its patronsaint, St. Rita of Cascia. The village wasestablished in 1945 to accommodate the residentsof Sumay village on Orote Peninsula who wereevicted by Japanese occupying forces and theU.S. Navy during World War II.http://guampedia.com 15. It is said that wild yams grew plentiful inthe lands nestled above the capital villageof Hagta. These yams were harvestedand cooked in earthen ovens dug into theground, a process known as chinhan. Thevillage name of Sinajana is believed toderive from this word, from whichcomes chinahn-a his or her cookingground.http://guampedia.com 16. After World War II was over the Navy did notallow the Sumay residents to reclaim their home,saying they needed the property for U.S. NavalBase, Guam. The former Sumay residents wereeventually relocated to the newly created villageof Santa Rita. All that remains of Sumay Villageis a cross from the Catholic Church, thecemetery and remains of a few of the structures.http://guampedia.com 17. The village probably derives its name fromthe phrase entalo i fefo, which meansbetween the cliffs. Its possible that thename is derived from another word, fofo,which means a bubbling spring. As theTalofofo River and the Talofofo Falls arelocated in the village, the name couldmean between the bubbling springs.http://guampedia.com 18. Tamuning is a Carolinian word which was given to the area whereCarolinians settled beginning in 1849 after a typhoon devastated Lamotrekand Satawal. It may be that Tamuning is the name of the Carolinian chiefsclan. The American administration relocated the Carolinian population ofTamuning to Saipan in the early twentieth century. Another name forTamuning during the nineteenth century was Maria Christina. The ancientChamorro name for the area was Apurgan or Apotgan Other major parts of modern-day Tamuning include Tumon (the islandstourism district) and Harmon (the islands industrial park). The originalmeaning of Tumon, known as Tumhun in the seveteenth century, hasbeen lost. Harmon is named after Lieutenant General Millard F. Harmon,commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces/Pacific Ocean Areas(AAF/POA). Harmon, along with Brigadier General James R. Andersen werelost at sea during a flight from Guam to Honolulu on February 25, 1945. Bothmen had Guam airfields named after them, but Harmon field was returned tothe government of Guam and has since become an industrial park.http://guampedia.com 19. The village derives its name from the word uma,which means to carry something on the back or aheavy load on the shoulders The history of Umatac is among the most rich of allthe villages of Guam, especially during theSpanish era. Among other distinctions, Umatac isthe home to Fouha Bay in which a rock calledFouha Rock sits. The ancient Chamorrosbelieved this rock to be the resting place of agoddess called Fuuna who, with her brotherPuntan, is credited with creating the world andpeople. The rock is also called CreationPoint.shoulders.http://guampedia.com 20. The meaning of Yigo is unclear.According to some it comes from theSpanish word yugowhich means yoke (thetype used to secure a carabao to a cart orplow). However, some sources refer to thearea as Asyigo which means the home of(a person known as) Yigo. If this is thecase, yigo may be an ancient wordwhose meaning has been lost.http://guampedia.com 21. Yona derives its name from the Chamorroword iyo-a, meaning to possess somethingmaterial, personal or spiritual. One of thevillages long time landowners, Santiago LeonGuerrero Cruz, said many people admired thearea for its bountiful coconut plantation, andvisitors would frequently ask who owned theproperty. Residents of the area, which wasthen called As Misen, replied, Iyo-a,meaning they owned it. Now the area andvillage is known as Yona.http://guampedia.com