Why is El Nino named for the Christ child?

The Spanish name El Nino (literally, “the son”) was coined by the fishermen of Ecuador and Peru to denote the warming of the coastal surface waters that often occurs in that area around Christmastime. Although this was a fairly regular seasonal event, the name later took on the larger meaning of any general warming trend and recently has come to mean the unseasonably warm weather patterns that occur two or three times a decade.