ABSTRACT
FROM HUMBOLDT ONWARDS, IF NOT BEFORE, IT HAS BEEN AXIOMATIC THAT, IN HIS words, 'The name Oceano Pacifico was, however, as Pigafetta tells us, first given by Magellan to the Mar del Sur (Balboa)'. 1 With respect, Pigafetta does not so tell us. But the statement has been repeated by writer after writer: one author, in fact, gives a highly coloured account of a splendid naming ceremony 'as the keel of the Trinidad drove into these waters', when obviously the standard reason for the name—the calmness of the great sea—could not yet be a known fact. No matter, Magellan must have 'prayed that the waters might always be as peaceful as they were that morning', and named the Ocean in hope, not knowledge. 2
