NY1's borough series takes you now to Brooklyn, where Jeanine Ramirez looks at names that have stuck around since some of the earliest residents — the Native Americans.

Everybody's heard of the Gowanus Canal. But how many of us know how the area got its name?

"Gouwane was an Indian chief who was very good to the settlers at that point," says John Manbeck, author of "The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn".  "And they decided to honor him by naming a community after him."

There are other places in the borough still named for the first Brooklynites, like Canarsie, a neighborhood named for the Canarsee Indians. Brooklynites use these major roadways once traveled by the Algonquin-speaking tribe.

 "Initially this was an Indian trail for the Canarsee Indians," said Brooklyn Borough Historian Ron Schweiger. "There were two main trails for the Canarsee Indians. Flatbush Avenue and Kings Highway. When the British anchored their ships in Gravesend Bay in the Revolutionary War the king's army came ashore with their canons and their soldiers and their horses and equipment it was a narrow trail through the woods. So they knocked trees down to make it wider for the king's army. Hence the name, the Kings Highway."

While the neighborhood kept the Canarsee name, Dutch settlers gave their names to most places, names that really took hold. Brooklyn itself comes from Breuckelen — a town in the Netherlands.

This is the Breuckelen patent from 1667, when it was just a town. Red Hook came from the Dutch Roode Hoek, which described its soil color and shape. Before the English, New Lots/East New York was Ostwout — meaning East Woods. Bushwick comes from Boswijck, meaning town in the woods. Flatbush — V'Lacke Bos — means flat woods. Midwood from Midwout — middle woods. And like Breuckelen, New Utrecht was a town named for a village in the Netherlands.

"We are the last vestige of the village of New Utrecht — the New Utrecht Reformed Church, the New Utrecht cemetery," said Susan Hanyen of the New Utrecht Dutch Reformed Church.

The tombstones still standing in the New Utrecht cemetery include some prominent Brooklyn families of Dutch origin, including Nostrand and Van Brunt, names that still live on as Brooklyn roadways.

The New Utrecht Dutch Reformed Church was built in 1700 and moved here in 1828 — right around the corner from New Utrecht Avenue.