Folklore about the name Ang Mo Kio
The name Ang Mo Kio which in Hokkien literally translates as "red-haired man's bridge", where ang mo was a colloqial term for a Caucasian person.
The Red Hair referred by the locals was a British Lady called Lady Jennifer Windsor. Lady Windsor was the wife of Lord Windsor, a wealthy merchant who had a huge estate in the Upper Thomson Area in the 1920s till after World War II.
It was a tragic incident that linked Lady Windsor to an unnamed crossing that bridged a stream running off the Peirce Reservoir. The incident happened in 1923 when Lady Windsor lost 3 of her children; Harry, Paul and Angela. The 3 children were supposed to have visited a family friend staying in the Upper Thomson area, and were lost in the woods. It was later found that the 2 boys were playing by the wooden crossing when a sudden gush swept them away. Their bodies were found about 2 miles from the bridge. However, the body of Angela was never found.
Since that eventful day, locals started hearing cries of a little girl and that prompted Lady Windsor to stay by the bridge for the rest of her life. She told her close friends that she had heard her daughter voices by the bridge and she wanted to accompany her soul. Lady Windsor would spend the whole day by the bridge, reading or knitting. People soon got used to her perpetual presence by the bridge that they soon referred to the bridge as the “Red Hair Bridge”; which in its right sense should have been called “Lady Windsor Bridge”.
Lady Windsor died in 1963 and it was only thereafter that locals no longer hear the voices of the little girl. Today, one could still see the disused bridge near the intersection of Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 and Upper Thomson Road.
Another logical explanation would be: Ang Mo Kio was named in reference to Mr John Turnbull Thomson. John Turnbull Thomson(1821–1884) was a British civil engineer and artist who played an instrumental role in the development of the early infrastructure of late nineteenth century Singapore and New Zealand.
Ang Mo Kio Heritage Trail
How They Get The Name Ang Mo Kio
The locality's name is believed by some to derive from the Hokkien phrase Ang Mo Kio (红毛茄 aka 番茄), meaning "Red Tomato". The term ang mo (literally "red hair") is a somewhat derogatory Hokkien reference to the people with fair hair who settled from the West and, because such a name might be considered unflattering, it is now written as 宏茂桥 which is pronounced in an almost identical way but means "Bridge of Expansiveness and Prosperity". Some local people have incorrectly assumed that the new version of the name refers to the bridges at the seventh milestone of Thomson Road (found at the junction of Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 and Thomson Road). These two old bridges were known as Or-kio （乌桥）("black bridges") in the local spoken dialects. Research suggests that neither of these bridges were officially named, but they spanned the canal and the old Kallang River forming a link to the Peirce Reservoir.
The actual source of the name comes from the old survey maps which label the land as "Mukim of Ang Mo Kio" (Mukim meaning "area" or "precinct" in Malay). The word "Ang Mo" 红毛 may in fact not refer to Westerners. Rather, it is derived from two separate combined phrases in Hokkien. Ang Mo Dan means "rambutan" 红毛丹, a local fruit, red and covered in hair, found plentifully around the areas of old kampongs. Likely the second suffix "kio" 桥 ("bridge" or "bridges" in Hokkien) was added to the prefix "Ang Mo" 红毛 as an additional description to indicate a more precise location that residents would recognize i.e.红毛桥. There were many concrete bridges built by the old kampong dwellers. It first appears on the early maps drawn by surveyors who took those two phrases and combined them to form "Mukim of Ang Mo Kio" ("District of Ang Mo Kio"). The actual location of Ang Mo Kio New Town has been also known by the former name Kou-teu kio, Hokkien for "Ninth Bridge”
