The ghosts of Christmas (Island) past: An examination of its early charting and naming

For some three centuries confusion existed among Europeans over the location and name of the Indian Ocean island now referred to as Christmas Island. Maps appeared charting the island with no name, with one of three names, with two names simultaneously, or as two or three adjacent islands. It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that it was consistently charted as Christmas Island. The origin and meaning of its other appellations, Moni and Selam, is the subject of this article.