Regarding the name - how about adopting MAP_EXCL? It was introduced in FreeBSD, and seems to do exactly this; quoting mmap(2): MAP_FIXED Do not permit the system to select a different address than the one specified. If the specified address cannot be used, mmap() will fail. If MAP_FIXED is specified, addr must be a multiple of the page size. If MAP_EXCL is not specified, a successful MAP_FIXED request replaces any previous mappings for the process' pages in the range from addr to addr + len. In contrast, if MAP_EXCL is specified, the request will fail if a mapping already exists within the range.