Q. At 85th Street and Central Park West, adjacent to the entrance to Central Park, the words “Mariners’ Gate” are chiseled into the park’s wall. Where did this name come from?

A. It’s not as ancient as one might think. All 18 original gates to the park have names; they were chosen in 1862 by the park’s commissioners in an effort to represent the broad variety of people who had made New York City rich and industrious enough to deserve and create Central Park. They represented a victory by the park’s designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, over more status-minded critics who wanted to see ornate, European-style entrances to the park. The idea, according to a 19th-century Central Park guidebook, was that all were welcome, regardless of rank or wealth.

Most of the gates, though named, did not receive their official lettering until 1999, when Henry J. Stern, then the parks commissioner, resumed the practice as part of the park’s restoration. The last inscription was finished in December 1999. Mariners’ Gate had been inscribed earlier, possibly under Robert Moses as parks commissioner during improvements in the 1950s, possibly during later improvements by the Central Park Conservancy.

Q. What is Jamaica, Queens, named after? The Caribbean island?

A. Nope. Beavers.

Jamaica wasn’t the settlement’s first name. In 1655, English colonists from Massachusetts and eastern Long Island established a town, Rusdorf, in the area the Dutch called Rustdorp (“rest-town”).