"COCOS ISLAND" IN CHAMORRO?

"Cocos" comes from "coco," as in "coconut."  It has nothing at all to do with the Chamorro language.  What others call coconuts, we call niyok. 

So what is the original, Chamorro name for what is called Cocos Island?  Dåno'.

When I was priest in Malesso', no one ever said to me "Cocos Island" if they talked to me in Chamorro.  Even the Malesso' people who worked at Cocos Island told me that they worked on Dåno'.

In an old Chamorro hymn telling the story of Our Lady of Camarin, whose image was found in Malesso' Lagoon, it says :

Gi tase giya Malesso' / yan hihot giya Dåno'
(In the sea by Malesso' /  and close by Dåno')

hagas un bendise sesso / i yan-mame na tåno'.
(all the while you often bless / our beloved land.)

That's a nice piece of Chamorro poetry, by the way.  Malesso'/sesso; Dåno'/tåno'.

Before the true name for this little isle is no longer used, let's resolve to call it Dåno'.  When someone says, "Ha?" we can enlighten them.

This map of Guam from the 1700s shows Dåno' off the coast of the island. The I stands either for Isla in Spanish or Île in French, both meaning "island," since sometimes the map was put out by a Spaniard or a Frenchman.

The map is not completely accurate. Dåno' (Cocos Island) is not right outside Humatak, spelled Umatag in the map, with Malesso' just below (spelled Merico). But in 1700 they didn't have what we have now to make more accurate maps.