19th century Victorian-era romanticism fuelled popular fascination with fairytales and a trend of fairy-themed place naming in Britain and its colonies and territories. The idealising of small islands that served colonial interests as plantations, prisons, military outposts, and maritime trade posts as idyllic, picturesque, fairytale places evoked attributes of empire while maintaining the status quo of dominant colonial culture. The development of tourism, offshore financing and real estate industries perpetuated the idealism of fairy-themed imaginative place naming of islands and island locations into the next century. This article examines the case of Bermuda as a promoted ‘fairy land’ and its exclusive enclave, Fairylands, through a synthesis of archival analysis and auto-ethnography and contributes to the development of toponymic studies in island research and culture.

Fairylandcolonial place namingtropicalisationenclavetourism