On Easter Sunday, 1722 Easter Island was named by its first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who was searching for Davis or David’s island.[2] The island’s official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, is Spanish for “Easter Island”.

The current Polynesian name of the island, Rapa Nui or “Big Rapa”, was coined by labor immigrants from Rapa in the Bass Islands, who likened it to their home island in the aftermath of the Peruvian slave deportations in the 1870s.[3] However, Thor Heyerdahl has claimed that the naming would have been the opposite, Rapa being the original name of Easter Island and Rapa Iti was named by its refugees.[4] There are several options for the “original” Polynesian name for Easter Island, including Te pito o te henua, or the “The Navel of the World” due to its isolation. Legends claim that the island was first named as Te pito o te kainga a Hau Maka, or the “Little piece of land of Hau Maka”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_island