The story
- Malay · derived frompaya“swamp”
- Hokkien · derived from大巴窯 /大巴窑“large swamp”
- English todayToa Payoh
From Hokkien 大巴窯 /大巴窑 (Tōa Pa-iô, “large swamp”). 巴窯 /巴窑 (Pa-iô) is itself a phonetic approximation of Malay paya (“swamp”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.