Those of us who grew up in Delaware County certainly know about our Wawas, a local landscape fixture.
We’re so familiar with Wawas that we don’t even question the source of the strange-sounding name.
Not so for Michael Bartiromo with PA Homepage, who tracked down Wawa’s name origin.
The convenience store chain’s headquarters is in the unincorporated community of Wawa, Pennsylvania. That’s because Wawa was also where the Wawa Dairy Farm was created in 1902 by company founder George Wood.
So, the Wawa brand appears to have started in Wawa, the community.
But where did the community get its name?
Here, the origin stories diverge. “Wawa” is said to have come from the Indigenous word “we’we”, the word for “Snow Goose” used by the Ojibwe People who lived in Canada.
Other sources say the name “Wawa” actually comes from the local Lenape tribe, which settled in what would become Delaware County.
However, a Wawa store representative disputed this, claiming the town of Wawa was named by a Canadian.
The Wawa store chain symbol is a Canadian goose who was also a year-round resident of the Greater Philadelphia area.
Find out more about the origin of the Wawa name and the chain’s association with geese in PA Homepage.
Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on DELCO Today in February 2025.
