Why is your city called that? There’s a story on how South Florida towns got their names

Doral, the city in Northwest Miami-Dade where former President Donald Trump owns a resort, is named for the golf course that was named for Doris and Al Kaskel.

Doris and Al. Doral. Get it?

The city of Aventura was named for a group of condos in the area, not the mall. Pennsuco, which has been wiped off the Miami-Dade map, was short for Pennsylvania Sugar Company.

Every place is named for something, it seems.

Take cities in Broward. Did you know that Hollywood was named for its California namesake? Or that Hallandale Beach is named for a Swedish settler?

Let’s take a tour through some Broward cities and dig into their names from information in the Miami Herald Archives:

Broward County was named, sensibly enough, for Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, the 19th governor of Florida who promoted the drainage of the Everglades.

That much we know.

How each city and town got its name is another story.

Broward’s municipalities owe their names to a number of sources — other cities, public relations men, local flora and fauna, pioneer settlers themselves.

The problem is, there isn’t a lot of recorded local history on the subject. Based on the best information we could find, here is how each community got its name:

COCONUT CREEK was named for its coconut palms and numerous small lakes and canals, replacing its original name, Edgefield, in 1967.

COOPER CITY adopted the name of developer founder Morris Cooper in 1959.

CORAL SPRINGS was named for two reasons. The area was known for its underground spring water. When Coral Ridge Properties asked for names for its new city in 1962, company co-founder Joseph Taravella offered Pompano Springs, because of its proximity to Pompano Beach.

Trouble was, Taravella’s partner, James Hunt, blew his top.

As Gordon Ickes, CRP’s former public relations director, recalled, Hunt pointed out Pompano is a fish, and “Fish Springs” made no sense at all.

At Ickes’ suggestion, they used “Coral” from the company name instead. “I was a peacemaker,” Ickes said.

DANIA BEACH was known as Modello at first, for the Florida East Coast Railway’s Model Land Co. Later, it was renamed by a delegation of Danes from Wisconsin, led by A.C. Frost. Formed in 1904, Dania was the first Broward city to be incorporated.

DAVIE was originally called Zona, but was renamed for Developer R.P. Davie, who owned a lot of land along the south fork of the New River. The name change was front-page news in The Fort Lauderdale Sentinel, May 1, 1914: “Davie Now a Reality and Zona No More.”

Only the town mailman, D.N. Graves, was inconvenienced by the change: “A little trouble has been caused by the similarity of the names Davie and Dania, especially when the names are carelessly written,” The Sentinel said.

A wise move nonetheless; the “Zona Rodeo” just doesn’t sound right.

DEERFIELD BEACH was born as Hillsborough, but became Deerfield in 1907 because of deer sightings in the hammocks west of town. Ray Collier, the city’s postmaster, has lived there since 1934 and remains skeptical. “I was born here, and I’ve never seen any,” he said.

“Beach” was added in 1939, but many people still call the city Deerfield, which was incorporated in 1925.

FORT LAUDERDALE got its name from Maj. William Lauderdale of Sumner County, Tenn., who pitched a fort on the banks of the New River during the Second Seminole War in March 1838.

The outpost was officially named Fort Lauderdale that year, and although it was deserted a few years later, the name continued to appear on maps as Fort Lauderdale. At the time of incorporation in 1911, the name became official.

HALLANDALE BEACH owes its name to Dania and to J.E. Ingraham, Henry Flagler’s right-hand man, who ran the Model Land Co. In his book Hallandale, Bill McGoun wrote: “After a group of Danish immigrants settled in Dania, Ingraham one day remarked to his Swedish brother-in-law, Luther Halland, ‘Why don’t you go down there and start a Swedish settlement?’ “

He did. Hence Hallandale, incorporated in 1927.

HILLSBORO BEACH is named for Hillsboro Inlet, which in Florida colonial days was named after Willis Hill, a British nobleman.

HOLLYWOOD was originally Hollywood-by-the-Sea in 1921, when founder Joseph Young came to town with visions of duplicating the other Hollywood — in California.

Young’s dream never quite materialized when the Florida land boom went bust during the Depression, but the city built in his image is a tourist destination, just as he imagined.

Even the mansion he lived in on Hollywood Boulevard is being renovated inside and out.

Hollywood was incorporated in 1925.

LAUDERDALE LAKES took its name from its much larger neighbor, Fort Lauderdale, when it was incorporated in 1961.

LAUDERDALE-BY-THE-SEA also co-opted its larger neighbor’s name. The tiny seaside town with the long name, incorporated in 1949, still endures the odd indignity of the abbreviation “Ld-B- T-S” in the telephone directory.

LAUDERHILL was the brainchild of William Safire, the New York Times syndicated columnist, who in the late 1950s was a press agent for Tex McCrary Inc.

One of the firm’s clients was All State Properties Inc., the developer of Lauderhill; the president of All State was Herbert Sadkin, a prominent Broward developer for 25 years.

“Herb was talking about this project he had in Florida,” Safire said, “and I said, ‘Where is it?’ “

When Sadkin said Fort Lauderdale, Safire thought of “hill and dale,” and the word Lauderhill sprang to mind.

“I did not ask if there was an elevation there to justify it,” Safire said.

LAZY LAKE was named by Developer Charles Lindfors in 1946 after a friend observed the village looked so lazy and peaceful.

LIGHTHOUSE POINT is named for a familiar Broward landmark, the Hillsboro lighthouse, which is on Hillsboro Inlet, but located in Lighthouse Point. Got that?

MARGATE once was known as Hammonville, after a man named Hammon who owned much of the farmland in the area. A Pompano Beach road still bears his name, and somehow a “d” was added to it — but that’s another story.

Margate came from the last name of Jack Marquesse, a developer who considered the city a gateway to the ocean. It probably didn’t hurt that “mar” means sea in Spanish.

The city seal shows a sturdy looking gate with the initial “M” inside it.

MIRAMAR has Spanish origins. In 1955, the first mayor, Bob Gordon, adopted the name Miramar, which in Spanish means “see the sea.”

NORTH LAUDERDALE is north of Fort Lauderdale and was named for that very reason, said City Clerk Milli Dyer, who’s been around since 1963 when the city was founded. She said the name came from the Osias Construction Co., one of the city’s original developers.

OAKLAND PARK was named in 1922 by officials of the Oakland Development Co. for the huge oak trees on the banks of the Middle River. Later, the city was called Floranada, but it was renamed Oakland Park for good in 1929.

One of Oakland Park’s first development ventures involved Screen Talent Studios Inc., a motion picture outfit that gave away lots to subscribers of its new movie magazine.

PARKLAND was named by Bruce Blount, its founder, in 1965 for its close resemblance to a park.

PEMBROKE PARK was named in 1957 for Pembroke Road, which courses through the town that remains predominantly a community of mobile homes. A logical question follows: Where did Pembroke Road get its name? We were afraid you’d ask that. Read on.

PEMBROKE PINES is a city name whose roots have eluded even Cooper Kirk, the respected local historian. Kirk’s theory: Sir Edward Reed, a Briton, was a key figure in the old Florida Land and Mortgage Co., which around 1883 bought much of the land west of Hallandale.

Around 1902, the village of Pembroke sprouted near present-day Carver Ranches, and many of the early settlers were from north Florida.

It was named such, Kirk thinks, because by then Reed was known as the Earl of Pembroke. “That’s using our imagination,” Kirk said. “But it’s the best we can come up with.”

PLANTATION began as the Old Plantation Water Control District around 1911, according to the city historical society. After World War II, Frederick Peters, the city’s premier developer, began selling one-acre homesites for co-op farming. He called them plantation homes.

In 1975, the city’s historical society researched the subject in detail and said in its report, “The Plantation Historical Society regrets it has been unable to locate the exact origin of the name Plantation.”

POMPANO BEACH owes its name to a group of surveyors from the Florida East Coast Railway, who enjoyed a delicious pompano fish dinner there and wrote the word “pompano” on their charts as a reminder of where they enjoyed the tasty treat. It stuck. Another, separate community was added on the beach and named Pompano Beach, and they were merged into present-day Pompano Beach in 1947.

SEA RANCH LAKES was incorporated in 1959, and got its name from the Sea Ranch Hotel across State Road A1A from town hall.

SOUTHWEST RANCHES got its name from residents and from the horse ranches in the city.

SUNRISE began as a retirement village named Sunset, since an early development was called Sunset Homes. But some retirees didn’t appreciate the reference, so the city was named Sunrise Golf Village when it was incorporated in 1961. Sunrise Golf Village was shortened to Sunrise 10 years later.

TAMARAC is one of those names whose origin is a matter of debate. Some people say Developer Kenneth Behring formed the name by reversing the letters of Caramat, an automatic car wash business he had up north.

Another story has it that he named it for the tamarack, part of the larch tree family. A larch is a short, green tree not usually found in Florida.

According to local lore, the tamarack was taken by Behring as a sign that transplanted people would flourish here too.

“There’s no definite answer to it,” Councilwoman Helen Massaro, a Tamarac said in 1985.

WILTON MANORS was named for the man who developed much of it, E.J. Willingham.

In 1955, several Wilton Manors residents compiled a historical brochure of their city and noted that “Wilton” was meant to perpetuate the Willingham name and “Manors” meant the city welcomed caucasians only. Wilton Manors was founded in 1924.

WESTON Two executives of the developer, Arvida Corp., Roger Hall and Walter Collins, picked the name in 1980 for the community, which later incorporated as a city.

Collins remembers brainstorming with Hall over more than 100 names, including Andytown West, West Lake and Collins’ other favorite, Arvida Ranch.

“We wanted something that didn’t sound like a subdivision or a cutesy, gimmicky kind of name, but a whole community name,” Collins said.Collins must remember who came up with the name, right?

WEST PARK was named so because it is west of the nearby Pembroke Park area.