 When Guise Brittan, the Waste Lands Commissioner, visited the area in December 1860, he was recognised and Fee chalked 'New Brighton' on a wooden plank, supposedly in reference to his fellow settler Stephen Brooker, who had come from New Brighton in England.The Māori name for the area is Kaiuau ("kai" means food and "aua" is Yellow-eye mullet) or O-ruapaeroa (an east wind blowing along the shore).The suburb is frequently referred to simply as Brighton, occasionally leading to confusion with Brighton near Dunedin.