Adopted 6 February 1948 on Hydrographic Services Chart #3805, as established on British Admiralty Chart #3711, 1924, and as listed in 1930 Gazetteer of Canada.

Source: BC place name cards & correspondence, and/or research by BC Chief Geographer & Geographical Names Office staff, file Q.2.45.

Named in 1878 by George Mercer Dawson, who modified a Haida term meaning “big rocky island” and applied it to this feature. Around WWI it appeared on some maps as Watson Island, and was known as Reject Island in the 1920s (a name still in local use), as logs that were unwanted by the nearby Buckley Cove sawmill, which only cut spruce, were stored there in a cove on the islands southeast side (known locally as Reject Bay).

Source: Scott, Andrew; "The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names"; Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, 2009, page 320.

The largest island in this group off Buckley Cove, lies east of Gray Island. Dr. Dawson applied the name in 1878, a modification of the Haida’s descriptive which meant big, rocky island. Chittenden in 1884 referred to it was EDWARD KWA-KANS.
From 1913 to 1919 it was shown on blueprints and he pre-emptor’s map as WATSON ISLAND. During the Buckley Bay Mill operation it became known as REJECT ISLAND, a name commonly used for it still, locally. All the reject logs were stored in the lagoon on the southeast side of the island, this in turn was known as Reject Bay. (Only No. 1 spruce was used in the mill, everything else classed as “rejects.”)

Source: Dalzell, Kathleen E; "Queen Charlotte Islands - Book 2: of places and names"; Prince Rupert: Cove Press, 1973, page 420.