Located north of Newark on the Passaic River, it was first settled in 1678 by Dutch traders, as Acquackanonk Township. The city and river get their name from the Lenape word "pahsayèk" which has been variously attributed to mean "valley" or "place where the land splits."[30][31][32][33]
^Page, Jeffrey. "Our towns challenge our tongues", The Record, June 17, 2005. Accessed May 19, 2021, via Newspapers.com. "Some people also add an extra syllable to Passaic. They say pa-SAY-ik, which renders them incomprehensible when speaking with residents, especially old-timers. 'The correct pronunciation is puh-SAKE,' said Mark Auerbach, the city historian. Very authoritative, but he himself says pa-SAY-ik. What is that all about? 'Yes, it's wrong,' he said, 'but I'm from Brooklyn and I'm too old to change habits now.'"
^Jennings, Rob. "N.J. welcome center sign spelled P-A-S-S-A-I-C wrong", NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, July 11, 2019. Accessed May 19, 2021. "Of New Jersey’s 21 counties, it is easy enough to understand why some persist in misspelling Passaic. Sure, the pronunciations -- 'puh-SAY-ik' or 'puh-sake' - provide a clear hint to the ordering of letters, yet it is not uncommon to spot the county mistakenly listed as 'Passiac.'"
^Martin, Jim. "Jim Martin", Schenectady Gazette, June 3, 1970. Accessed May 19, 2021, via Newspapers.com "When you have to run 20 miles a day through a corridor of urban sprawl without bumping into Hackensack, South Orange (pronounced 'Arnj'), Passaic (pronounced 'Puh-sake'), Cedar Ave., Nutley or the Delaware-Lackawanna tracks, you are a human being of extraordinary determination."
^Maciag, Mike. "Population Density for U.S. Cities Statistics", Governing, November 29, 2017. Accessed December 4, 2020. "The following are the most densely populated cities with populations exceeding 50,000:... [5th] Passaic, N.J.: 22,424 persons/sq. mile"
^Cunningham, John T. This is New Jersey, p. 67. Rutgers University Press, 1994. ISBN978-0-8135-2141-1. Accessed January 27, 2015. "Passaic was a Lenape word, too. Some say it meant 'place where the land splits' or 'place where the river splits'. Others claim the word meant 'valley' to the Lenape."