CALABASAS : Town’s Name Offers Choice of Meanings

Ask any well-informed Calabasas resident what the town name means, and you will be told.

“Pumpkin,” said City Councilman Marvin Lopata.

“Large gourd,” said resident and community activist Doris Laviolette. “Or pumpkin. It comes from the Spanish word.”

Right. The Spanish word for squash is calabaza.

Hence the hugely popular pumpkin festival in Calabasas each fall. The joyous pumpkin races. Pumpkin cook-offs. The inflatable jack-o’-lantern perched on a hill above the Ventura Freeway at Halloween.

But wait, say some historians. The name has another, older meaning.

Calabasas, they say, comes from the Chumash word meaning “where the wild geese fly.” But Calabasas historians could not produce the Chumash word.

The Chumash, who lived in the area long before the Spanish, apparently were impressed by the arrival each fall of Canada geese seeking a more temperate winter spot. Some wild geese now call Calabasas Lake on the east side of town their permanent home, to the annoyance of some neighbors and the delight of others.

Is this grounds for a new town namesake?

“I don’t know,” Lopata said. “I can’t see us having a wild goose festival with a wild goose eating contest.”

Not to worry, said Calabasas Historical Society President Arlene Bernholtz, both meanings of the word are probably valid.

“These are the stuff of legends,” Bernholtz said. “Although the pumpkin seems to have become the most popular.”

Further confusing things is the Calabasas city logo, which includes the profile of a red-tailed hawk. Not a goose.

And then there are those who would start new legends.

The name Calabasas, said a jesting Mayor Karyn Foley, certainly comes from radio man Jimmy Durante, who ended each show with the mysterious line, “Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.”