Lard, not Montego: how the bay got its name

There was never a Mr. Montego. The name that is now stamped on the airport, the cruise pier and a million t-shirts almost certainly comes from the Spanish period, before the English took the island in 1655.

The usual explanation is ‘Bahía de Manteca’ — Bay of Lard, or Butter Bay. Wild hogs were plentiful here, and the bay was where their rendered fat was traded and shipped. Manteca, worn down by a few centuries of English mouths, becomes Montego.

It is not the only theory, and the Spanish records of this coast are thin, so treat it as the best supported rather than the proven one. What it does tell you is how old the working life of this harbour is. Long before the hotels, before the sugar estates, before the cruise ships, boats were pulling in here to load something and take it somewhere else.

Locals mostly skip all of it and say MoBay. That contraction is the name the city actually answers to.