[Passaic] is a modern orthography of Pasaeck (Unami-Lenape), German notation, signifying "Vale or valley." Zeisberger wrote Pachsójeck in the Minsi dialect. The valley gave name to the stream. In Rockland County it has been corrupted to Paskack, Pasqueck, etc.
[Paquapick] is entered on Pownal's map as the name of Passaic Falls. It is from Poqui, "Divided, broken," and -ápuchk, "Rock." Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, who visited the falls in 1679-80, wrote in their Journal that the falls were "formed by a rock stretching obliquely across the river, the top dry, with a chasm in the center about ten feet wide into which the water rushed and fell about eighty feet." It is this rock and chasm to which the name refers—"Divided rock," or an open place in a rock.
[Pequannock,] now so written, is the name of a stream flowing across the Highlands from Hamburgh, N. J. to Pompton, written Pachquak'onck by Van der Donck (1656); Paquan-nock or Pasqueck, in 1694; Paqunneck, Indian deed of 1709, and in other forms, was the name of a certain field, from which it was extended to the stream. Dr. Trumbull recognized it as the equivalent of Mass. Paquan'noc, Pequan'nuc, Pohqu'un-auke, etc., "A name common to all cleared land, i. e. land from which the trees and bushes had been removed to fit it for cultivation." Zeisberger wrote, Pachqu (Paghqu), as in Pachqu-échen, "Meadow;" Pachquak'onck, "At (or on) the open land."
[Peram-sepus,] Paramp-seapus, record forms of the name of Saddle River, [FN] Bergen County, N. J., and adopted in Paramus as the name of an early Dutch village, of which one reads in Revolutionary history as the headquarters of General George Clinton's Brigade, appears in deed for a tract of land the survey of which reads: "Beginning at a spring called Assinmayk-apahaka, being the northeastern most head-spring of a river called by the Indians Peram-sepus, and by the Christians Saddle River." Nelson (Hist. Ind. of New Jersey) quoted from a deed of 1671: "Warepeake, a run of water so called by the Indians, but the right name is Rerakanes, by the English called Saddle River." Peram-sepus also appears as Wieramius, suggesting that Pera, Para, Wara, and Wiera were written as equivalent sounds, from the root Wil (Willi, Winne, Wirri, Waure), meaning, "Good, fine, pleasant," etc. The suffix varies, Sepus meaning "Brook"; Peake (-peék), "Water-place," and Anes, "Small stream," or, substantially, Sepus, which, by the prefix Ware, was pronounced "A fine stream," or place of water.
[FN] Called "Saddle River," probably, from Richard Saddler, a purchaser of lands from the Indians in 1674. (Col. Hist. N. Y., xiii, 478.)
[Monsey,] a village in Rockland County, takes that name from an Indian resident who was known by his tribal name, Monsey—"the Monseys, Minsis, or Minisinks."
[Mahway,] Mawayway, Mawawier, etc., a stream and place now Mahway, N. J., was primarily applied to a place described: "An Indian field called Maywayway, just over the north side of a small red hill called Mainatanung." The stream, on an old survey, is marked as flowing south to the Ramapo from a point west of Cheesekook Mountain. The name is probably from Mawéwi (Zeisb.), "Assembly," where streams or paths, or boundaries, meet or come together. (See Mahequa.)
[Mainaitanung,] Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, and Mainating in N. J. Records, given as the name of "A small red hill" (see Mahway), does not describe a "Red hill," but a place "at" a small hill—Min-attinuey-unk. The suffixed locative, -unk, seems to have been generally used in connection with the names of hills.
[Pompton]—Ponton, East N. J. Records, 1695; Pompeton, Pumpton, Pompeton, N. Y. Records—now preserved in Pompton as the name of a village at the junction of the Pequannock, the Wynokie, and the Ramapo, and continued as the name of the united stream south of Pompton Village to its junction with the Passaic, and also as the name of a town in Passaic County, N. J., as well as in Pompton Falls, Pompton Plains, etc., and historically as the name of an Indian clan, appears primarily as the name of the Ramapo River as now known. It is not met in early New York Records, but in English Records, in 1694, a tract of land is described as being "On a river called Paquannock, or Pasqueck, near the falls of Pampeton," and in 1695, in application to lands described as lying "On Pompton Creek, about twenty miles above ye mouth of said creek where it falls into Paquanneck River," the particular place referred to being known as Ramopuch, and now as Ramapo. (See Ramapo.) Rev. Heckewelder located the name at the mouth of the Pompton (as now known) where it falls into the Passaic, and interpreted it from Pihm (root Pimé), "Crooked mouth," an interpretation now rejected by Algonquian students from the fact that the mouth of the stream is not crooked. A reasonable suggestion is that the original was Pomoten, a representative town, or a combination of towns. [FN-1] which would readily be converted to Pompton. In 1710, "Memerescum, 'sole sachem of all the nations (towns or families) of Indians on Remopuck River, and on the east and west branches thereof, on Saddle River, Pasqueck River, Narranshunk River and Tappan,' gave title to all the lands in upper or northwestern Bergen and Passaic counties." (Nelson, "Indians of New Jersey," 111), indicating a combination of clans. Fifty years later the tribal title is entered in the treaty of Easton (1758) as the "Wappings, Opings or Pomptons," [FN-2] as claimants of an interest in lands in northern New Jersey, [FN-3] subordinately to the "Minsis, Monseys or Minisinks," with whom the treaty was made. The clan was then living at Otsiningo as ward's of the Senecas, and seems to have been composed of representatives of several historic northern New Jersey families. It has been inferred that their designation as "Wappings" classed them as immigrants from the clans on the east side of the Hudson. Obviously, however, the term described them as of the most eastern family of the Minsis or Minisinks, which they were.