Wadawurrung Place Names
Wadawurrung Town Names and Meanings Across Country
Place names are powerful. They hold the memory of Country, culture, and law. For the Wadawurrung people, whose Country stretches across Geelong (Djilang), Ballarat (Balla Arat), the Bellarine Peninsula, and the western volcanic plains, town names in their language are enduring signs of belonging.
Many places still carry their original Wadawurrung or Kulin names, while others were renamed, altered, or mistranslated during colonisation. Restoring their true meanings is a central act of truth-telling, cultural renewal, and recognition of sovereignty (Blake 1991; Clark 1990).
Each name is not only a word but a map of knowledge — encoding stories of landforms, water, Dreaming, and the movement of Ancestors.
Wadawurrung Country: A Living Landscape of Names
The Wadawurrung Nation, part of the Kulin Confederacy, spans from the Surf Coast and Bellarine Peninsula through Geelong, Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh, the Werribee Plains, and west to Beaufort.
Across this vast landscape, place names are more than locational markers. They are oral maps — teaching ecological law, ceremony, and kinship systems. As historian Richard Broome (2005) notes, “Country was read like a text; its names were sentences that spoke of use, belonging, and law.”
Many names describe topography or ecological behaviour: a river’s curve, a hill’s shadow, or a bird’s flight. Others record Dreaming events — the journeys of Bunjil, Waa, or ancestral water beings.
Key Wadawurrung Place Names and Meanings
Djilang (Geelong)
Meaning: “Tongue of land” or “sea cliffs.”
Context: Refers to the peninsula shape of land along Corio Bay.
Significance: The heart of Wadawurrung Country and a gathering place for fishing, ceremony, and trade (Clark & Heydon 2002; Wadawurrung TOAC 2023).
Balla Arat (Ballarat)
Meaning: “Resting place.”
Context: Derived from words describing a camping site or place of pause.
Significance: An ancient gathering and ceremonial ground long before the 1850s gold rush (Broome 2005).
Anakie
Meaning: “Little hill” or “hill of many small stones.”
Context: Refers to the volcanic rises of the Brisbane Ranges.
Significance: A region managed through fire-stick farming, rich in murnong (yam daisy) and bush foods.
Buninyouang (Buninyong)
Meaning: “Man lying on his back with knee raised.”
Context: Describes the profile of nearby volcanic hills.
Significance: Served as a spiritual and navigational landmark for travellers and ceremony (Clark 1990).
Barwon River – Parwan / Barwon (Barwang)
Meaning: “Magpie.”
Context: Reflects the magpie’s totemic role across Wadawurrung and neighbouring Kulin Nations.
Significance: Central to eel harvests, fishing, and camp life; the magpie’s song marked seasonal change (Presland 1994).
Moorabool River – Moorabool
Meaning: “Ghost” or “shadow.”
Context: From murrabul, possibly relating to spiritual presence along the waterway.
Significance: Camps and eel traps lined the river, and stories of water beings (similar to Bunyip traditions) were told here (Clark 1990).
Balla-wein (Bellarine Peninsula)
Meaning: “Resting place of the pelican.”
Context: Pelicans were messengers and providers, guiding people to rich fishing and wetland sites.
Significance: The Peninsula was abundant with shellfish, reeds, and migratory bird life.
Kubbadangnya (Torquay)
Meaning: Reconstructed to mean “sandy place by the water.”
Context: Based on coastal naming traditions recorded by early linguists (Blake 1991).
Significance: A site for seasonal gathering, shellfish collection, and coastal ceremony.
Wirribi-yaluk (Werribee River)
Meaning: “Spine” or “backbone.”
Context: Refers to the river’s meandering form, winding like a spine through Country.
Significance: A vital water source and fishing ground, home to bream, waterfowl, and ceremony.
Merrimu (Bacchus Marsh)
Meaning: “Place of many birds.”
Context: Linked to wetlands and Lerderderg-Werribee confluence.
Significance: Provided abundant waterfowl, fish, and ceremonial hunting grounds.
Larra (Lara)
Meaning: “Swamp” or “place of swamp gums.”
Context: Describes the red gum plains and wetlands of the district.
Significance: A key resource zone for reeds, fish, and animal habitat.
Mori-yak (Mount Moriac)
Meaning: “Dark” or “swampy.”
Context: Relates to volcanic soil and wetland zones.
Significance: The area supported yam daisies, freshwater sources, and ceremonial gathering.
Place Names as Cultural Memory
Every Wadawurrung name is a record of cultural science.
They mapped food systems, spiritual boundaries, and environmental cycles — encoding survival knowledge in story and sound (Broome 2005).
Names pointed to water, stone, or plant resources.
They warned of spiritual danger or places requiring ceremony.
They recorded Dreaming pathways, ensuring ancestral presence across Country.
For example, Bunjil the wedge-tailed eagle, the great creator and law-giver, is linked to peaks and high places across Wadawurrung Country, while rivers and wetlands hold stories of water spirits like the Bunyip — protectors of sacred waters and reminders of respect for balance.
Impacts of Colonisation on Names
Colonisation fractured this system of naming. From the 1830s onwards:
Indigenous names were replaced or distorted through English spelling (e.g., Djilang → Geelong).
Entire landscapes were renamed after colonists or towns in Britain.
Language suppression and missionisation severed oral transmission (Clark 1990; Presland 1994).
The Wadawurrung people, like many nations, resisted through memory — passing names and meanings down orally despite displacement to missions such as Buntingdale, Framlingham, and Coranderrk.
Today, archival records, maps, and oral histories together allow these names to be restored to their rightful prominence.
Contemporary Revitalisation and Truth-Telling
The Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation (WTOAC) is leading the movement to reclaim language and restore place names across the region.
Projects include:
Language and Country programs teaching the meanings of rivers, towns, and sacred sites.
Dual naming initiatives adopted by the City of Greater Geelong and regional councils, featuring Wadawurrung-English signage.
Cultural interpretation programs in schools and national parks connecting youth and community to Wadawurrung heritage.
Through these initiatives, the act of naming becomes an act of sovereignty, healing, and continuity — reminding all Victorians that this land has never been empty, and every name is a story of belonging (Wadawurrung TOAC 2023).
Conclusion
From Djilang (Geelong) to Balla Arat (Ballarat), from Wirribi-yaluk (Werribee) to Balla-wein (Bellarine), every Wadawurrung name carries layers of meaning: ecological, spiritual, and historical.
Though colonisation sought to overwrite these stories, they endure — in language revival, cultural practice, and the living memory of Country.
Restoring Indigenous place names is more than linguistic work; it is a return to law, respect, and truth.
Each name reasserts that Wadawurrung Country was — and remains — a network of living stories, sung and spoken long before the word “Victoria” ever existed.
References
Blake, B. (1991). Wathawurrung and the Colac Language of Southern Victoria. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Broome, R. (2005). Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Clark, I. D. (1990). Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800–1900. Melbourne: Monash Publications in Geography.
Clark, I. D. & Heydon, T. (2002). Dictionary of Aboriginal Placenames of Victoria. Melbourne: Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages.
Presland, G. (1994). Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People. Melbourne: Harriland Press.
Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation (2023). Language and Country Resources. Geelong: WTOAC.
Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter (22 September 2025)
MLA
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Magic Lands Alliance acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples’ communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of their respective communities.