History northern beaches: How Dee Why got its unusual name but why did it get it?
Two questions – how Dee Why got its name and what it means – have perplexed local historians for generations, bringing forth a wide variety of theories.
Manly
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Two questions – how Dee Why got its name and what it means – have perplexed local historians for generations, bringing forth a wide variety of theories.
One of the oldest and most fantastic theory was that the name originated when a Spanish ship under the command of Captain De Vegas was lost during a storm in the South Pacific and was wrecked at Dee Why.
The captain then allegedly carved his initials into the rock but after successfully carving the letter D, his hand slipped at the bottom of the letter V, turning it into the letter Y.
Another theory was that De Vargas’ ship was called the Donna Ysabel, and it was the ship’s initials he was carving, but his ship was called the Santa Ysabel, not the Donna Ysabel, and it was lost in the Solomon Islands.
Another, equally implausible, theory is that, from a certain unspecified vantage point, the beach and the lagoon resemble the letters D and Y.
Another theory is that Dee Why Lagoon was once inhabited by a bird that made the sound “dee-wee”, which the early settlers had trouble anglicising.
The problem with all these theories is that they relate to the area we now call Dee Why, whereas the original Dee Why was two beaches south, at what is now called Freshwater Beach.
The first reference to Dee Why was made by surveyor James Meehan who, in September 1815, was surveying several land grants on the northern beaches.
Among the grants he surveyed was one of 20ha promised to Thomas Bruin, of which Meehan wrote in his field book: “Wednesday 27th September 1815 – Dy Beach – 50 acres for Thomas Bruin”.
But Bruin’s land grant was at Freshwater and the “Dy Bay” that Meehan marked on the map he drew is now called Freshwater Beach.
So any theories about the Dee Why name originating at what we now call Dee Why are impossible – the original Dee Why was at what we now call Freshwater.
Then, during a survey of Long Reef in 1821, Meehan referred to “Dy Lagoon” immediately south of Long Reef.
So Meehan appears to have had a large area in mind when he referred to Dy but that is not surprising given that “Pittwater” once referred to everywhere between Middle Harbour and Broken Bay and that “Manly” once referred to everywhere between North Harbour and Mona Vale.
Meehan later amended Dy to D.Y. as if to clarify its pronunciation but he never wrote what he meant by Dy.
With one of the questions about the origin of the Dee Why name answered, what remains is the question of why Meehan chose Dy.
Once again there are a number of theories, all of which have been covered in great detail in “Why Dee Why”, which was published by Dee Why resident and Manly, Warringah and Pittwater Historical Society president Richard Michell in 2009.
One theory is that, just as Woy Woy is a corruption of Wy Wy, the Aboriginal name for that part of the Central Coast, Meehan may have written Dy to mean double “Y”, although the fact he clarified the pronunciation of Dy as D.Y. suggests this theory is wrong.
Another theory is that Dy was a surveyor’s reference or an abbreviation of a word but Richard Michell demolishes the credibility of these theories with ease.
Another theory is that the Dy has its roots in Meehan’s Irish heritage, Deey (pronounced dee-why), which is a not uncommon surname in Ireland.
But no one named Deey lived or owned land on the northern beaches.
Historian and former surveyor Tony Dawson, who wrote a book about James Meehan in 2004, made the point that Meehan seldom if ever named new locations.
At the end of his long research into the Dee Why name, Richard Michell posits that the most likely source of the word was the local Aborigines and that it might have been their word – or a corruption of it – for a large area between Freshwater and Long Reef.
Richard Michell wrote that Meehan may have spoken with Aborigines in the area and would likely have spoken with Europeans in the area and that he had heard the word dee-why from them.
It might explain why Meeehan never bothered to explain why he used Dy in his surveys of the area – he might have though the word was in common enough use that it needed no explanation.