Santa María de Guía de Gran Canaria

Before the Castilian conquest of Gran Canaria ended in 1483, the settlement here was known by its aboriginal name, Aguía. It sat close to Agaldar, the capital of the Guanartemato, the island's pre-conquest political centre. The name Aguía persisted well beyond the conquest — land and water distribution documents from 1555 still use it.

After the Castilian takeover, the place was renamed Villa de Guía, commonly shortened to Guía, and that is what it stayed for several centuries. From the 19th century onward, the form Guía de Gran Canaria began to gain ground, partly as an administrative modernisation and partly to distinguish it from a different Guía on the island of Tenerife.

The name changed again under the Franco dictatorship. On 28 December 1962, the then-mayor Rafael Velázquez García proposed adopting the name Santa María de Guía, incorporating the dedication of the Catholic church that had stood in the municipality since the 15th century. The town council approved the change on 26 April 1963. The Cabildo Insular of Gran Canaria initially refused, but the Council of Ministers overrode that objection and formally decreed the new name — Santa María de Guía de Gran Canaria — on 23 July 1963.

The debate has not entirely closed. In 2008 the local council opened an online public consultation asking residents whether they wanted to revert officially to Guía de Gran Canaria.