Question #12749. Asked by Sr5.
Last updated Sep 09 2016.
Contrary to the popular belief that the original name of Los Angeles was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the ((River)) Porciuncula), scholars have determined from official documents of Governor Felipe de Neve, Commandant General de la Croix and Viceroy Bucareli that the settlement was simply named El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles (The Town of the Queen of the Angels.)
[Source: Mexican Los Angeles by Antonio Rios Bustamante, Floricanto Press, 1992]
"You see it at the top of the map, 'El Pueblo de la Reyna de los Angeles.' That's the name on the first handwritten map in 1785. You have to look at the original documents, and that's what we've done. The name is right there." The map uses "Reyna"; other sources spell it "Reina."
As local lore tells it, on September 4, 1781 the 44 pobladores gathered at San Gabriel Mission and, escorted by a military detachment and two priests from the Mission, set out for the site that Crespí had chosen. In reality, several of the families were probably already working on their plots of land as early as late July.[6] Governor de Neve gave the new town the name El Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles-The Town of the Queen of the Angels.
The new governor of California, Felipe de Neve, recommended to the viceroy in Mexico that the site be developed into a pueblo (town). The area was duly named "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula," ("The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the River Porciúncula"). It remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents, making it the largest civilian community in Spanish California. Today the outline of the Pueblo is preserved in a historic monument familiarly called Olvera Street.