Vancouver Island adopted 29 June 1921 on Ottawa file OBF 0611, as long identified on maps and charts.

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

"Vancouver Island" and the approved French form, "Île de Vancouver", identified as names of pan-Canadian significance per Treasury Board Circular 1983-58, 23 November 1983.

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

"Señor Quadra has very earnestly requested that I would name some port or island after us both, to commemorate our meeting and the very friendly intercourse that had taken place and subsisted between us. Conceiving no spot so proper for this denomination as the place where we had first met, which was nearly in the centre of a tract of land that had first been circumnavigated by us... I named that country the island of QUADRA and VANCOUVER; with which compliment he seemed highly pleased." (vol 2. p 672; Vancouver's journals, republished as "The Voyage of George Vancouver..." by The Hakluyt Society, 1984, edited by W.K. Lamb).

Source: Vancouver, Captain George; A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World; London 1798-1801 (5 books)

Named "Quadra and Vancouver's Island" by Captain George Vancouver, and so-labelled on his Chart of the Coast of Northwest America. The name arose from a conversation between the English navigator and Bodega y Quadra as they returned to Friendly Cove after making a formal visit to Maquinna's village at the head of the Tahsis Inlet in early September 1792.
Between 1792 and 1794, Vancouver explored and surveyed the coastline from California to Alaska, and was the first to create detailed charts of many sections of the complex British Columbia coast, waterways and offshore islands; along the way, he bestowed names on many features and recorded observations & impressions in his journal. Vancouver's journals were published in London, 1798-1801, as "A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World" (5 books, including maps & illustrations). Republished with annotations in 1984 by The Hakluyt Society as "The Voyages of George Vancouver..." (4 volumes, comprising 1752 pages plus introduction & appendices, W.K. Lamb, editor. [Hakluyt Society 2nd Series, Part II, nos. 163, 164, 165, 166.] )

Source: BC place name cards, correspondence and/or research by BC Chief Geographer & Geographical Names Office staff.

Bodega had referred to the island as the Gran Isla de Fuca, but following the Vancouver/Bogeda agreement, "Quadra and Vancouver's Island" initially appeared on British, Spanish and even French charts. However, as Spanish influence in North America declined, "Quadra" was soon dropped. By 1824 the Hudson's Bay Company was referring to "Vancouver's Island" in formal correspondence. Its influential position on the west coast ensured that this would soon become the norm. Sometime later the apostrophe was eliminated and the island took on its present name. (introductory notes, "The Voyage of George Vancouver..." by The Hakluyt Society, 1984, edited by W.K. Lamb).

Source: included with note

The Colony of Vancouver Island was established in 1849, when the entire island (12,408 sq. miles / 32,260 sq. km) was leased to the Hudson's Bay Company for seven shillings a year. In return for colonizing the island, the company was given the right to sell land and mineral rights to entice potential settlers. "Vancouver's Island" (with apostrophe) was the name of the Colony for about 10 years in official documents; after c1860 usually identified as "Vancouver Island" (no apostrophe); no definite authority for the change.

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