Whonnock at Rivers Inlet and the Fraser River -- not related

In the early 1880s, when a rail station and a post office had to be named, the white immigrant community on the Fraser River adopted the name Whonnock, an Anglicised version of name of the tribe that lived there. It is a Downriver Halkomelem name related to pink or humpback salmon. "Place where there are (always) humpback salmon" or "Place of the humpback salmon," are the most common interpretations of meaning of the name Whonnock. This Halkomelem name was also given to Whonnock Lake and Whonnock Creek.

Not everyone knows that there is another place in British Columbia called Whonnock and that there is a Whonnock River. This Whonnock and the river are at Rivers Inlet. In Kwakwakawakw (Kwakiutl) the name means "the owner of the river." Aside from the similar modern spelling of the name there is nothing that connects these two places or the First Nations peoples who lived there.

"Whonnock" was not used as a surname at the Fraser River, but it is well-known family name at and around Alert Bay and Rivers Inlet. As Shanon Whonnock explained it her great-great grandfather started using the name John Wanuwk and church records show a variety of spellings until, as from around 1828, the writing settled at Whonnock. Shanon's great-great grandfather acquired the name Wanukw through marriage. "It comes from his wife's grandmother who was a princess of a Chief from Rivers Inlet."