Adopted 7 March 1933 on Ottawa file 1420, as labelled on British Admiralty charts since 1853.

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

H.M. steam vessel Virago under George Inskip, surveyed these waters in 1853. So-named in Sailing Directions, Queen Charlotte Islands - Western Coast of North America, 1853, p.8; remarks by George H. Inskip, Master, RN. (British Library 10496.i.29)

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

Named after H.M. paddle sloop-of-war, Virago, 6 guns. The Haida name for Virago Sound was "tin-eye" meaning "big".

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

"...evidently named Port Crafts by Capt. Ingraham after his mate in 1792. So-identified on Ingraham's map "Washington's Isles," a part of his larger 1792 manuscript "Chart of part of the west coast of America" to accompany his journal of the brigantine Hope.

Source: Wagner, Henry R; The Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America; University of California Press, Berkley, 1937

"In 1791, Captain Joseph Ingraham on the small brig Hope out of Boston, Massachusetts, spent time along the British Columbia coast trading for furs at Native American villages. His first officer was John Cruft. In Ingraham's logbook (original in the Smithsonian Library, Washington, DC) he mentions that he named an anchorage "Cruft's Cove after my chief officer...." (volume ii, p.80). This occurred a year (or possibly two) prior to the arrival of Captain Vancouver to the area."(Information provided January 2008 by John Bakke, Portland, Oregon, descendant of John Cruft)

Source: included with note