This chapter begins with the way in which Oceania was first populated by successive waves of migration beginning around 50,000 to 45,000 years ago, noting that studies of the early period often deploy the geographic terms ‘Near Oceania’ and ‘Remote Oceania’ that have no ethnic or cultural connotations as some later naming practices do. It goes on to examines the demarcation of Oceania, or the various parts of it, by European explorers. The most controversial exercise in naming is undoubtedly the tripartite division of the Island Pacific devised by eighteenth-century Europeans, namely, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The distinctions between these subregional entities arose in a context in which racialist ideas were prominent and that therefore bear their imprint. The tripartite division receives special attention in this chapter due not only to the scholarly critiques surrounding it but also because of the extent to which it underpins contemporary subregional developments.