‘Jamaica’ may come from a Lenape word for beaver.
Jamaica may get its name from Yameco, a corruption of a Lenape word for ‘beaver’; the Dutch spelled the ‘y’ sound with a ‘j’, and the English later pronounced it as a hard ‘j’. It has nothing to do with the Caribbean island. Peter Stuyvesant had called the area Rustdorp (‘rest-town’) in 1656. The station, at 179th Street, was first drawn up as 178th Street.