Adopted 7 December 1937 on 92G/6 as labelled on British Admiralty Chart #1922, 1860 et seq.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

English Bay and nearby Spanish Bank were named c1859 by Captain Richards, RN, in commemoration of the meeting here in June 1792 between the English under Captain Vancouver and the Spanish under Captains Galiano and Valdes.

Source: Provincial Archives' Place Names File (the "Harvey File") compiled 1945-1950 by A.G. Harvey from various sources, with subsequent additions

"Named because the Spanish exploring vessles Sutil and Mexicana, under Galiano and Valdes, were found here at anchor by Captain Vancouver in June 1792. The British vessels did not anchor in this neighbourhood nearer than Birch Bay. The bank is shown, but not named, on Galiano's charts of 1792 and 1795, but on Vancouver's chart it is not mentioned at all. It was known to the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company as Spanish Bank for the above reasons, and was the name adopted by Captain Richards, HMS Plumper, when making his survey of Burrard Inlet in 1859."

Source: Walbran, John T; British Columbia Coast Names, 1592-1906: their origin and history; Ottawa, 1909 (republished for the Vancouver Public Library by J.J. Douglas Ltd, Vancouver, 1971)