Every name is a sentence someone spoke first.

Meeting place

Ngunnawal

A gathering ground of many nations — fittingly, the capital of the federation.

Plain turkey

Ngunnawal

The valley takes its name from the bustard the Ngunnawal hunted there.

The place of many crows

Wiradjuri

Doubling means plurality — a whole sky of them over the Murrumbidjeri.

Usually given as 'the sound of the sea'

Dharawal

A city named for the sound its harbour makes.

Where the sea makes a noise

Dharawal

Named for the blowhole that still announces it.

Water breaking over rocks

Dharug

The famous surf was named for its sound, not its sand.

Koojah — a whiffy place

Dharug

The seaweed still washes up; the name still tells the truth.

Young black kangaroo

Dharug/Eora

One of the first Aboriginal words recorded in Sydney — and now a train station.

The place where the eels lie down

Dharug

The second settlement grew on an eel-run.

Shining falling water

Dharug

The Blue Mountains town takes its name from the waterfalls.

High hill

Dharug

Shade tree

Dharug

One of many NSW names that is simply a tree, standing in a sentence.

Safe harbour

Dhurga

Cloud catcher

Bundjalung

The caldera's great peak — its English name was given by Cook; its own name is far older.

Bullinah — a place of plenty

Bundjalung

Food was so abundant on the Richmond that the name needed no translation.

Balla arat — a resting place, a camp

Wathaurong

The goldfields city began as a good place to stop.

Jillong — a tongue of land

Wathaurong

River of mists

Woiwurrung

'Yarra' is a surveyor's mishearing from 1835 — the river's own name is Birrarung.

The Woiwurrung name for the Melbourne place

Woiwurrung

No translation is usually given — the name simply is.

Red kangaroo place

Kaurna

The Adelaide site's own name — Tandanya is now the city's cultural institute.

Meeting place

Adnyamathanha

The great amphitheatre where people gathered — and still gather.

Kupa piti — 'white man's hole in the ground'

Yankunytjatjara/Arrernte

The opal town's name is a desert joke that stuck — the miners live in holes too.

No known meaning — it is simply the name

Anangu — Pitjantjatjara

Some names resist translation; this one was never a sentence.

Many heads

Anangu — Pitjantjatjara

The domed monoliths of the Olgas, named for what they look like at dawn.

White stone

Larrakia

The Larrakia name for Darwin is returning through welcomes and signage.

Big waters

Miriwoong

The Ord River's town, named for the water it holds.

Place across the water

Noongar

A place of holidays now — and of mourning, for the prison that stood there.

The Noongar name for the Perth place

Noongar

The Turrbal name for the Brisbane place

Turrbal

The Yidiny name for the Cairns place

Yidiny

The Quandamooka name for the island

Quandamooka

Oodgeroo Noonuccal's country, home ground of her poetry.

The palawa name for the Hobart place

palawa

Adopted into official dual naming in 2018.

The Nuenonne name for Bruny Island

Nuenonne — palawa

Truganini's home ground.

Nullus arbor — 'no trees'

(Latin — not First Nations)

A rare counter-example: the plain's most famous name is Latin, not Aboriginal. Its Mirning and Wirangu names are older still.

Big water — the track of a very big river

Wiradjuri

The river the flash floods followed