OK, so this isn't exactly paddling related, but the question of the name "New Zealand" was posed during tonight's practice.
From Wikipedia:
The first European name for New Zealand was Staten Landt, the name given to it by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who in 1642 became the first European to see the islands. Tasman assumed it was part of a southern continent connected with land discovered in 1615 off the southern tip of South America by Jacob Le Maire. The name New Zealand originated with Dutch cartographers, who called the islands Nova Zeelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland.[7] No-one is certain exactly who first coined the term, but it first appeared in 1645 and may have been the choice of cartographer Johan Blaeu.[8] British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand.