Ho-Ho-Kus Pocus

Downtown Ho-Ho-Kus is getting a $532,596 streetscape makeover.

It's generally not newsworthy per se to mention a certain city is undergoing streetscape enhancements to the downtown business district, unless it is a particularly large project or notable for some other reason.

It did, however, catch our attention when the imminent conclusion of a streetscape project to add new curbs, sidewalks, decorative lighting and tree plantings in the business district of Ho-Ho-Kus was announced. Ho-Ho-Kus? Huh?

Ho-Ho-Kus, turns out, is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey in the northeast corner of the Garden State. Not surprisingly, there are several theories behind the name.

The borough's website postulates a number of possibilities:

1. An adulteration of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware Indians) term ''Mah-Ho-Ho-Kus,'' meaning ''red cedar.''
2. An Indian word for running water.
3. An Indian word for cleft in the rock or under the rock or hollow rock.
4. From Hohokes, an Indians name signifying the whistle of the wind against the bark of trees
5. Named for the Chihohokies Indians.
6. From the Dutch ''Hoog Akers'' (high acorns) or ''Hoge Aukers'' (high oaks)/
7. ''Ho'' meaning joy or spirit and hohokes meaning a tree bark.
8. Derived from Indian word ''hocus,'' meaning gray fox.