Why Is It Called Cape May? The Real Story Behind the Name

Cape May is named after Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, a Dutch sea captain who sailed into Delaware Bay in the 1620s and charted the peninsula for the Dutch West India Company. He named the northern cape Cape Mey after himself, and English-speaking settlers later anglicized the spelling to May.

Key Takeaways

• Cape May’s name traces back to Dutch explorer Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, who charted Delaware Bay’s two capes in the early 1620s and named the northern one Cape Mey.
• The southern cape Mey named Cape Cornelius is today known as Cape Henlopen, across the bay in Delaware.
• English colonists shifted the spelling from Mey to May sometime after settlement; the area itself was called Cape Island through much of the 17th and 18th centuries.
• Cape May County was formally created on November 12, 1692, while the settlement wasn’t incorporated as a borough until 1848, becoming Cape May City in 1869.
• In 1976, the entire city was designated a National Historic Landmark, a distinction local historians describe as unique among U.S. cities that are wholly covered by that status.
• Henry Hudson sighted the area in 1609 aboard the Half Moon, but he never founded a settlement here; Mey’s later voyages are what actually produced the name.

If you’ve ever stood on the porch of a Victorian guesthouse near Congress Hall and wondered how a stretch of Jersey Shore sand ended up with a name that sounds more like a person’s surname than a place, you’re onto something. It is a surname. As of 2026, Cape May remains one of the few American resort towns whose name you can trace to a single documented individual rather than a saint, a monarch, or a geographic description.

We host guests at properties like Cape Belvedere, two minutes from Congress Hall in the heart of the historic district, and we get asked about the town’s origins constantly, usually over coffee on the shared porch. This guide untangles the conflicting dates you’ll find in other sources (1614, 1620, 1621, 1623), separates Henry Hudson’s brief 1609 visit from the actual naming voyage, and explains exactly how a Dutch captain’s surname survived four centuries of English, war, fire, and Victorian rebuilding to end up on your GPS today.

Who Was Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, the Man Behind the Name?

Cornelius Jacobsen Mey was a Dutch sea captain from Hoorn, Holland, who explored the Delaware Bay region for the Dutch West India Company in the early 1620s and later became the first director of the New Netherland colony. According to the New Netherland Institute, Mey was appointed to that director role in 1624, just after his exploratory voyages along the mid-Atlantic coast.

The New York State Unified Court System’s historical biography adds specific detail: Mey may have been born around 1580 in Hoorn and commanded a ship called the Fortune around 1614, sailing into Delaware Bay years before the naming voyage most historians credit. In 1625, he captained the Nieu Nederlandt, bringing the first thirty Dutch settler families to New Netherland, a separate and later mission from the exploration that put his name on the map.

Mey never actually settled at Cape May. Multiple sources, including a historical account from CapeMay.com, note that his 1623 naming voyage apparently didn’t involve setting foot on land at all. He sailed past, charted the coastline, and moved on. That’s not unusual for the era; naming a cape after yourself while cruising by was a fairly standard flex for 17th-century Dutch captains.

When Did Mey Actually Sail Into Delaware Bay?

Sources disagree on the exact year Mey’s naming voyage occurred, with dates ranging from 1620 to 1623 depending on the source, and this inconsistency is the single biggest source of confusion in Cape May origin stories. The City of Cape May’s official history page dates his exploration to 1621. A government-hosted historical text hosted on govinfo.gov ties Mey’s naming of the two capes to his 1614 command of the Fortune. Meanwhile, a CapeMay.com historical account places the actual christening voyage in 1623, describing a flotilla of three ships rounding the cape.

Here’s the likely explanation, based on cross-referencing these accounts: Mey made multiple voyages along this coast over roughly a decade, first as early as 1614 aboard the Fortune, and again in the early 1620s with a larger expedition. The naming tradition most commonly cited, three ships in the 1620s, sailing into Delaware Bay and christening both capes, likely refers to a later, more thoroughly documented voyage than his earlier 1614 pass. Rutgers University Libraries’ scholarly work, Cape May history, connects the 1620 naming tradition specifically to these earlier expeditions, suggesting the confusion stems from historians conflating separate trips rather than any single voyage having a disputed date.

What’s consistent across every source: this was a Dutch commercial exploration mission, not a government-sponsored expedition, and it happened sometime in the decade bracketed by 1614 and 1623. If you’re citing a specific year to a friend, “the early 1620s” is the safest, most broadly supported answer.

Why Are There Two Capes, Cape May and Cape Cornelius?

Mey named two separate capes on his voyage into Delaware Bay, not just one, and the geography of that decision explains a detail most casual explanations skip entirely. According to Cape May County’s official Historic Sites page, Mey named the northern cape of the bay’s mouth Cape Mey after his own surname, and the southern cape across the water Cape Cornelius, after his first name.

Only one of those names survived in its original form. The northern cape kept the Mey name and eventually became today’s Cape May, New Jersey. The southern cape, however, didn’t stay Cape Cornelius. It’s now known as Cape Henlopen, located across the bay in Delaware near Lewes.

The government-hosted historical text at govinfo.gov specifically addresses the confusion this created on old maps, noting that Cape Cornelius and Cape Henlopen labels got mixed up in cartography over the following decades. So if you’ve ever driven the Cape May-Lewes Ferry and wondered why the town on one side is named after a Dutch captain while the town on the other side has a completely different-sounding name, this is your answer: Mey named both capes on the same voyage, but only his own surname stuck to the map in its intended form.

Was Cape May Called Something Else Before It Was Named Cape May?

Cape May was widely known as Cape Island for much of the 17th and 18th centuries, a name that reflected how the peninsula’s geography actually reads from the water. CapeMay.com documents this earlier name directly, and it’s a detail most short explanations of the town’s history skip past entirely.

The Cape Island name persisted long after Mey’s naming voyage. It wasn’t until the settlement was formally incorporated as the borough of Cape Island in March 1848 that the community got its first official municipal identity, still using that older name. That changed quickly: the town reincorporated as Cape Island City on March 10, 1851, and finally renamed itself Cape May City on March 9, 1869.

So there’s actually a two-century gap between when the geographic feature was named Cape Mey (early 1620s) and when the town itself formally adopted the Cape May name (1869). For most of that stretch, locals were calling the place Cape Island, not Cape May, even though the surrounding bay had carried Mey’s name for generations. That’s a distinction that gets flattened in most quick summaries but matters if you’re trying to understand why historic records from the 1700s reference Cape Island rather than Cape May.

Did the Spelling Really Change From Mey to May?

Yes. English-speaking settlers who arrived after the Dutch anglicized the original Dutch spelling Mey (and a related variant, Maey) into the more familiar English May. Cape May County’s official history confirms this directly: the northern cape retained the explorer’s name, but English settlers changed how it was written.

The New Netherland Institute makes a point worth flagging here: even though the spelling shifted, the pronunciation of “May” today still preserves the original sound of the Dutch “Mey.” That’s a small but genuinely interesting continuity, the spelling anglicized, but the sound the Dutch captain would have recognized survived intact. As the county’s heritage brochure notes, both the city and Cape May County share this same Dutch namesake, which is why you’ll see “May” and occasionally the older “Maey” spelling cropping up in different historical documents depending on the era and the source.

Was Cape May Discovered by Henry Hudson Instead?

Henry Hudson sighted and briefly anchored near what is now Cape May Point in 1609 while sailing the Delaware Bay aboard the Half Moon, but he did not name the cape or establish any settlement there. This distinction matters because Hudson’s voyage predates Mey’s by more than a decade, and conflating the two explorers is one of the most common errors in casual accounts of Cape May’s origin.

Hudson was working for the Dutch East India Company at the time, exploring the coast in search of a passage to Asia. He noted the bay, moved on, and never returned to formally chart or settle the area. Mey’s later voyages, undertaken for the separate Dutch West India Company, are what actually produced the naming and, eventually, the colonial infrastructure. As a result, Hudson gets credited in some sources as the “discoverer” of the region in a broad sense, while Mey is correctly credited as the man who put a specific, lasting name on the map.

Before either European explorer arrived, the peninsula was inhabited by the Kechemeche, a subgroup of the Lenni-Lenape people, who the City of Cape May’s official history page identifies as the area’s earliest known residents. The Kechemeche primarily hunted across the peninsula before European settlers purchased land from Native inhabitants in the 1630s, after which fishing and whaling became the area’s first real industries.

Is Cape May Technically an Island?

No, Cape May is not technically an island today, though it was historically referred to as Cape Island and sits on a peninsula shaped by tidal creeks and marshland that can make it feel island-like. The name Cape Island, used through much of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, likely came from the way the peninsula is nearly encircled by water: the Delaware Bay to the west, the Atlantic to the east, and tidal marsh channels cutting through the landscape.

Modern Cape May City sits at the southern tip of the Cape May peninsula, connected to the rest of New Jersey by land, so geographically it functions as a peninsula rather than a true island. But the historical name persisted long enough that “Cape Island” appears throughout property records, newspaper archives, and even the town’s own 1848 borough incorporation, which used that older name before the 1869 switch to Cape May City.

Is Cape May a Wealthy Area?

Cape May carries a reputation as an affluent seasonal destination, largely because of its concentration of restored Victorian mansions, and Cape May County’s tourism economy backs that reputation with real numbers. According to Cape May County’s tourism data, the county generated $8.44 billion in visitor spending in 2026, a 4.2% increase year over year, with average visitor spending reaching $700 per trip.

That said, “wealthy” deserves some nuance. Cape May City itself is a small, seasonal resort town where much of the economy runs on tourism, hospitality, and short-term rentals rather than year-round high-income residency. The Victorian mansions that give the town its upscale visual identity, many built after a devastating 1876 fire destroyed 30 acres of the town center, were historically built as summer cottages for wealthy Philadelphia families, not as evidence of a broadly wealthy year-round population. The county’s overnight visitation grew 2.9% in 2026 even as day trips declined slightly, suggesting demand for longer, higher-spend stays is increasing, which tracks with the area’s upscale hospitality reputation.

For travelers planning a trip built around that reputation, our neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide to where to stay in Cape May breaks down which parts of town lean most historic versus most walkable.

What Famous People Live in Cape May?

Cape May has drawn wealthy and notable visitors since the 18th century, when Philadelphia families began treating it as a summer escape, a tradition the City of Cape May dates to 1766 as the start of its identity as a vacation destination. Historically, the town’s Victorian-era guest registers reportedly included prominent East Coast families and political figures of the day, drawn by the same rail and steamship access that made Philadelphia elites regular summer visitors.

Today, Cape May’s public profile centers less on individual celebrity residents and more on the town’s collective identity as a preserved 19th-century resort. The 1976 National Historic Landmark designation, which covers the entire city, means that even everyday guesthouses and rental properties sit inside the same historic protection that governs the town’s most famous mansions. That designation, more than any specific resident, is what defines Cape May’s reputation among architecture enthusiasts and historians today.

What Movie Was Filmed in Cape May, NJ?

Cape May’s well-preserved Victorian streetscape has made it an attractive backdrop for period productions over the years, thanks to the same 1976 National Historic Landmark designation that protects its architecture from modern alteration. The town’s combination of gingerbread trim, wraparound porches, and gaslamp-era street grids gives filmmakers a rare, largely unaltered 19th-century American resort town to shoot in without heavy set dressing.

If you’re planning a visit specifically to spot filming locations, your best bet is walking the core historic district around Washington Street and Beach Avenue, where the highest concentration of intact Victorian structures sits. Properties like Cape Oar, tucked inside an 1860 Victorian house one block from the Washington Street Mall, put you right in the middle of that architectural backdrop for the length of your stay.

How the Cape May Fire and Victorian Rebuild Shaped the Name’s Legacy

A five-day fire in 1876 destroyed roughly 30 acres of Cape May’s town center, and the rebuilding that followed is directly responsible for the Victorian architectural identity the town’s name is now inseparable from. This is the deep-dive most quick explanations of “why is it called Cape May” skip entirely, but it’s arguably more important to the town’s modern identity than the 17th-century naming story itself.

Before the fire, Cape May’s buildings reflected a mix of earlier architectural styles from its centuries as a working fishing and whaling community, and later, as a growing resort town. After the fire leveled much of the commercial core, property owners rebuilt in the ornate, gabled, wraparound-porch Victorian style that was fashionable at the time. That rebuilding wave is why Cape May today looks less like a colonial-era settlement and more like a snapshot of 1880s American resort architecture.

This matters for the naming question because it explains a genuine paradox: Cape May’s name is 17th-century Dutch, but its look is almost entirely late-19th-century American. The town most visitors picture when they hear “Cape May”, gingerbread trim, painted ladies, wide porches, is a product of 1876 rebuilding decisions, not the original Dutch-era settlement. In 1976, exactly a century after the fire, that same rebuilt Victorian core earned the city’s National Historic Landmark status, with local historians noting Cape May is the only U.S. city entirely covered by that designation. You can walk this history yourself along the best things to do in Cape May, many of which sit inside buildings rebuilt in that post-fire decade.

How Do Cape May the Cape, the City, and the County Differ?

Cape May the geographic cape, Cape May City, and Cape May County are three distinct entities with different naming and founding histories, and conflating them is one of the most common sources of confusion in casual research. Specifically: the geographic cape was named by Mey in the early 1620s; the county was formally created by an act of the General Assembly of the Province of West Jersey on November 12, 1692, roughly seven decades later; and the city took its final name in 1869, nearly two and a half centuries after Mey’s original voyage.

Additionally, the earliest specific indirect reference to Cape May as a recognized community appears in a New Jersey Assembly record from 1697, according to VisitNJShore, five years after the county’s formal creation. This timeline shows that the name existed on maps and in official county records well before there was a formally incorporated town using it, which explains why so many historical accounts feel like they’re describing different eras of the same place, because they are.

Practical Guidance: What This History Means for Planning Your Visit

Understanding Cape May’s naming history isn’t just trivia. It helps explain what you’re actually looking at when you visit, and it can sharpen how you plan a trip. Here’s how to apply it:

1. Visit the historic district to see the 1976 landmark firsthand. The core blocks around Washington Street and Beach Avenue hold the highest concentration of post-1876 Victorian architecture, the visual legacy of the town’s rebuilding era.
2. Don’t confuse Cape May with Cape Henlopen. If you’re island-hopping via the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, remember that Delaware’s Cape Henlopen was Mey’s original Cape Cornelius, a naming decision from the same 1620s voyage.
3. Time your trip around the county’s overnight-stay growth. With overnight trips up 2.9% in 2026 per county tourism data, booking a stay well ahead of peak summer weekends is increasingly worthwhile.
4. Stay inside the historic district for the full effect. A property like Cape Wave, set inside an 1860 Victorian house a five-minute walk from the beach, puts you directly inside the architectural story rather than adjacent to it.
5. Read the historical markers, don’t just photograph them. Cape May’s historic district has more documented backstory per block than most comparable shore towns; the Cape May MAC organization runs walking and trolley tours that go deeper than a self-guided walk will.

Where Should You Stay to Experience Cape May’s History?

Staying inside Cape May’s historic district puts you within walking distance of the same streets that carry the town’s 350-year naming legacy, and several Cape del Mar properties sit directly in that core. Cape Belvedere, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo on the top floor of the Belvedere building, sits two minutes from Congress Hall and a block from the Washington Street Mall, with a private cupola offering Atlantic views that stretch to Delaware on clear days.

If you’re traveling as a couple or with one small child, Cape Whale sits in the rear addition of the historic Baronet Mansion on Beach Avenue, directly across from the beach. Its sister unit, Cape Surf, occupies the second floor of the same historic building and welcomes well-behaved dogs, a detail worth knowing since not every Cape del Mar property is pet friendly.

For a deeper dive into how these historic-district neighborhoods differ block by block, our where-to-stay guide breaks down the trade-offs between beachfront, Mall-adjacent, and quieter residential blocks. And if you’re building a full itinerary around the history covered here, our complete first-timer’s guide to planning a Cape May trip walks through logistics, timing, and getting here from Philadelphia or New York.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it called Cape May?

Cape May is named after Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, a Dutch sea captain who explored Delaware Bay for the Dutch West India Company in the early 1620s. He named the northern cape Cape Mey after his surname; English settlers later anglicized the spelling to May.

When was Cape May founded?

The geographic name dates to Mey’s naming voyage in the early 1620s, but the town itself wasn’t formally incorporated until March 1848, as the borough of Cape Island. It reincorporated as Cape Island City in 1851 and finally became Cape May City in 1869. Cape May County, separately, was created on November 12, 1692.

How far is Cape May from Philadelphia?

Cape May sits roughly 90 to 100 miles southeast of Philadelphia, typically a two to two and a half hour drive depending on traffic and bridge crossings. It’s a popular weekend escape route for Philadelphia-area travelers seeking a coastal reset without a long flight or drive.

Is Cape May dog friendly?

Yes, many parts of Cape May welcome dogs, though rules vary by beach and season. Not every rental property allows pets either; at Cape del Mar, Cape Whale, Cape Surf, and Cape Pelican in Cape Coral are pet friendly, while other properties in our portfolio are not, so always check the specific listing before booking with a dog.

Does Cape Coral have a beach?

Cape Coral itself is primarily known for its canal system rather than an oceanfront beach, though beaches are a short drive away. Cape Coral Beach is roughly a 10-minute drive from central Cape Coral, and Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island are both accessible within about 35 to 40 minutes, distances that guests at Cape Pelican can confirm firsthand.

Is Cape May technically an island?

No, Cape May is not currently an island; it sits on a peninsula. It was historically called Cape Island for much of the 17th through 19th centuries because tidal marshes and bay waters nearly surround the landform, but the modern city connects to the New Jersey mainland by land.

What does the name Cape May have to do with Cape Henlopen in Delaware?

Cornelius Jacobsen Mey named two capes on the same 1620s voyage: Cape Mey (now Cape May, New Jersey) on the north side of Delaware Bay’s mouth, and Cape Cornelius on the south side. Cape Cornelius is now known as Cape Henlopen, located near Lewes, Delaware, and reachable from Cape May via the Cape May-Lewes Ferry.

The Bottom Line on Cape May’s Name

Cape May’s name comes down to one Dutch captain’s decision to christen a stretch of coastline after himself sometime in the early 1620s, a decision that outlasted three centuries of spelling changes, a devastating fire, four separate municipal incorporations, and a 1976 landmark designation. Cornelius Jacobsen Mey never settled here, but his surname, softened from Mey to May by English colonists, became one of the most recognizable place names on the Jersey Shore.

What makes Cape May worth visiting in 2026 isn’t just that origin story, though. It’s the fact that the town’s rebuilt Victorian core, its walkable historic district, and its status as America’s oldest seaside resort all sit on top of that centuries-old naming decision, still visible on nearly every block you’ll walk.

If you want to experience that history from inside it rather than just reading about it, Cape Belvedere puts you two minutes from Congress Hall, with a private rooftop cupola for watching the sun set over the same waters Mey once sailed. Check availability at Cape Belvedere whenever you’re ready to plan your stay.

Written by Julia & Hanno, Hosts at Cape del Mar