Coat of Arms - Aibonito, Puerto Rico

This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license and is Attributed to The Eloquent Peasant. The name Aibonito is possibly a combination of Spanish and Taíno from Hatibon or Jatibon, which the native name of the Aibonito River. Jatibon most likely translates to "black river" or "night river", the indigenous name of the river which was later turned into a diminutive in Spanish (Jatibon-ito). It is common to have native place names in Puerto Rico be historically adopted and modified into the Spanish language such as Mucarabones for example, which is a plural of Mucarabon, meaning "owl river" in Taíno. There's also a legend that tells of a Spanish soldier called Diego Alvarez who on May 17, 1615, reached one of the highest peaks in the area and upon watching the view, exclaimed "¡Ay, qué bonito!" ("Oh, how pretty!") which eventually was turned into the name of the region. If this is the case it would be considered folk etymology. Some of the municipality's nicknames include: Ciudad de las Flores ("City of Flowers") and Jardín de Puerto Rico ("Puerto Rico's garden") after the region's floral industry and annual festival, and Ciudad Fría ("Cold City") and Nevera de Puerto Rico ("Puerto Rico's refrigerator") after the fact that the municipality has recorded some of the island's lowest temperatures.