Up to 1763, in the Island of Pines a state of great abandonment prevailed as a result of several such geographical and political factors as; the lack of interest of the colonial authorities of to found a population and to fortify it to protect it of the attacks of corsairs and pirates. This is evidenced in the ephemeral character of the different granted names:
San Juan Evangelist: Christopher Columbus called this way it in his second trip when arriving to his costs in June of 1494, although the cosmógrafo Juan of the Thing, in the lifted map, represented to the Island like part of the current county of Pinegrove of the River, and the toponímico it embraced to that whole region.
Santiago: In 1524 Diego Velázquez intended to the king from Spain to change San Juan's Evangelist name for that of Santiago. The king didn't accept it because it didn't seem him well that there are two islands with that name, because Columbus called this way to Jamaica. It is said that Velázquez proposed it as a homage to itself.
Sacred María: He/she appears starting from 1525, after the king from Spain rejected Santiago's name and it orders Velázquez to put him that of another saint.
Ahao: The king called this way it Fernando the Catholic in the Real Identification of February 18 1525. Apparently this name is below a deformation of the word that Bartolomé of the Houses appears in Brother's book, History of the India in the one that, when referring to the Island, an aborigine used the expression The Island of under Cuba". apparently, the changes fonemáticos in the Spanish language and the calligraphy of the time suggest such a confusion.
San Paulo or San Pauli: He/she was denominated this way starting from 1527 in the map of the cosmógrafo Maggiolo. This you also confirms in that of Sebastián Munster 1538 and their successive editions up to 1550.
Island of Pines: According to the declarations of Christopher Columbus servant, the Portuguese Juan of Salcedo, was called this way by the sailors due to his plentiful forests of coniferous. He/she appeared for the first time with this name in the map of the cosmógrafo Diego Rivera 1529. Also in the Gulf of Honduras there was an island noted Island of Pines for Christopher Columbus in their fourth trip to the America and they don't lack who outline that to call it was this way a confusion with that.
Guanaja (Guanaxa): Although he/she was denominated this way, in fact this name belonged to an island located in the gulf of Honduras.
Amalia reigns: It was granted him by the king Fernando VII as homage to their third wife. He/she appeared for the first time when being approved the project of colonization of Island of Pines, identified as Colony Amalia Reigns", for the Real Identification of August 1 1828.
Camaraco: The first one in calling it was this way the colonel Don Joaquín of Miranda and Madariaga, although it should be pointed out that some doesn't appear in map. It is considered that such a name is derived of the indigenous voice Camarcó, because an aboriginal town was called this way located in the left riverbank of the river Arimao, in Cienfuegos. You also speculates on this toponímico in the region of the peninsula of Zapata.
With the time the official name that prevailed was that of Island of Pines. In 1978 it is substituted by that of Island of the Youth, proposed from the decade of sixty in the XX century. In the First Ordinary Period of Sessions of the national Assembly of the Popular Power, June 28 1978 were approved the law modificativa to the Law of Political-administrative Division, by means of which modify the articles 1, 17 and 18 of the Law 1304, of June 3 1976 on the territorial division. In the new writing the Article 1 countersign the change of name of Island of Pines legally for of Island of the Youth which was adopted as a homage to the Cuban youth's contribution in the transformations materialized during the revolutionary period, that which became official August 2 1978 in the mark of celebration of the Youth's XI World Festival and the Students, of which the Island was subsede. On the other hand the article 17 were edited in the following way:
"Article 17: The Municipality Special Island of the Youth is not part of none of the counties, and consequently, the Municipal Assembly, Executive Committee and Administrative Addresses, they are subordinated directly in the pertinent thing to the National Assembly of the Popular Power, to the Council of State, to the council of Ministers and other central organisms of the Administration of the State."
The gentile of their residents, nevertheless, continues being ¨pinero¨, consent expressed by their population after that moment, through public survey. Also, through the oral tradition and the literature they were granted other appellatives to the town; such they were:
The pirates' island: Because of being an important post of corsairs and pirates, as well as place to carry out smuggling trade and extraction without license of natural resources.
Island of the treasure: Linked to the previous name and also, for association with Robert's novel L. equal Stevenson names.
Siberia of Cuba: This way he/she called it José of the Luz and Gentleman in their aphorism Not. 18, due to the great quantity of deportations that, for political and criminal reasons, they made the Spanish colonial authorities from Cuba toward this remote place.
Island of the Parrots: To be this very abundant bird in other times and one of their main attractiveness of the natural environment. Also for their image related with the pirate's classic print, with their stick paw, the patch in an eye and the parrot in the shoulder.
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