A famous mountain gets two new names. Was this a messy compromise or a farsighted decision? Or is it still too early to tell? Produced by Justin Gregory.

Love their work, hate their work; the New Zealand Geographic Board has been busy naming and renaming bits of New Zealand scenery for nearly a century now.

There have been a few blowups along the way. None of them bigger than the controversy over what to call one of our most famous mountains. Was this a messy compromise? Or a farsighted decision?

"It was because of political pressure."

When I was a kid at Pihanga Primary School in Tūrangi, the teachers used to tell us the legends of the mountains that stood all around us. One of them went something like this.

Once upon a time, seven gods in the form of volcanoes lived around Lake Taupō. Tongariro, Ngāuruhoe, Ruapehu, Pūtauaki, Tauhara and Taranaki all fought for the love of the beautiful Pīhanga.

Tongariro won and stands next to Pīhanga today. Five of the losing mountains retreated peacefully away to the south, the north and the east, where they remain.

But one of them, the furious Taranaki, stormed off to the west, gouging a trench across the land as he went that filled with his tears, becoming Te Awa Tupua, Whanganui River.

Taranaki stopped when he reached the Pouakai Ranges, close enough to see Pīhanga, but far away enough to placate Tongariro. They say that during particularly stunning sunsets, Taranaki is displaying himself to Pihanga. And when Tongariro erupts, he is warning Taranaki to stay away.

So far, he has.

At the time, the volcano was known to nearby iwi as Pukehaupapa and as Pukeonaki by tribes living further away. It became known as Taranaki after Rua Taranaki, the first ancestor of the iwi of the same name.

In 1770, Captain James Cook sailed past the mountain and named it Egmont. This was to honour John Perceval, the Second Earl of Egmont, First Lord of the Admiralty, and a key supporter of Cook's voyage. Cook didn't land in the region so iwi weren't informed about the name change. Poor old Perceval died before he ever found out.

Two years later, French explorer Marion Du Fresne renamed the mountain Pic Mascarin, but he was killed not long afterwards so that one never really took.

To recap: Pukeonaki, Pukehaupapa, Taranaki, Egmont and Pic Mascarin have been some of the names the mountain has worn - but in the colonial era, it was 'Egmont' that started appearing on maps.

After the second Taranaki war in 1865, the mountain and a million acres around it are confiscated by the Crown and sold for resettlement…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details