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John Cletheroe's
USA and Canada Holiday Hints |
As a visitor to the USA and Canada from Britain, I feel very uneasy attempting to be a source of information on Native American matters. If anyone knows of a web site, preferably of Native American authorship, which lists Native American place names together with their meanings I would be very interested to hear of it. I have looked for such a site without success. You can email me using the link at the bottom of this page.
Pete Murphy kindly emailed me with details of a web site which includes place names used by the Lenape (Delaware) people, originally of Delaware, New Jersey, New York State and eastern Pennsylvania. The URL is http://www.web-savvy.com/river/Schuylkill/new_lenape.html (verified Aug-02) and it also includes other examples from the Lenape language.
The precise derivation of many place names from Native American languages is uncertain, or subject to several different theories.
Modern place names have been derived from Native American names in a variety of different ways, including the following:
The Iroquoian Confederacy included five or six (over time) nations, and they had related but distinct languages. So the word Canada is "Iroquoian" in a sense, but it's like saying that a word in English/French/German/etc. is "European" - not a very exact description. Canada is a Mohawk word. The Mohawks are one of the Iroquoian nations / language groups.
| Place | Language | Meaning and Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | From the Alabama or Alibamon people, members of the Creek Confederacy | |
| Alaska | Aleut | Mainland |
| Aleutian Islands | From the Aleut people | |
| Arizona | Place of the small spring | |
| Arkansas | From the Arkansa people | |
| Canada | Iroquoian (specifically Mohawk, I'm informed) | Community or village |
| Connecticut | Algonquian | Place of the long river, meaning the Connecticut River (probably) |
| Dakota | Sioux/Lakota/Dakota | Allies |
| Denali | The Native American name which is now used for Mount McKinley, Alaska and the National Park in which it lies | |
| Hawaii | Polynesian | (unknown) |
| Idaho | According to one theory, a Kiowa-Apache word, meaning "fish-eaters", "mountain-gem", or their name for the neighbouring Commanche tribe. According to an alternative theory, the name was invented by congressional candidate George Willing and was never a word in any Native American language | |
| Illinois | From the Illinois or Illini people | |
| Iowa | From the Iowa people | |
| Kansas | From the Kansa people, a Sioux/Lakota/Dakota tribe | |
| Kentucky | Iroquoian | Meadowland (maybe) |
| Manhattan | Algonquian | Island of hills |
| Manitoba | Great Spirit's strait | |
| Massachusetts | Algonquian | Place of big hills (probably) |
| Mexico | Aztec | From the city of Metz-xih-co, meaning "in the centre of the waters of the moon", build on an island in a lake |
| Michigan | Algonquian | Big water |
| Minnesota | Sioux/Lakota/Dakota | Cloudy water |
| Mississippi | Algonquian | Big river |
| Missouri | Algonquian | The name of a Native American group which lived near the mouth of the river |
| Mobile, Alabama | From the French version of the name of the Native Americans who lived in the area | |
| Nebraska | Sioux/Lakota/Dakota | Flat or broad water |
| Niagara | At the neck | |
| Nunavut | Inuit | Our land |
| Ohio | Iroquoian | Fine river |
| Oklahoma | Choctaw | Red people |
| Ontario | Iroquoian | Beautiful lake (meaning Lake Ontario), or rocks standing by the water (meaning Niagara Falls) |
| Ottawa | From the Ottawa or Outaouais people (probably) | |
| Poughkeepsie | Algonquian | A little reed lodge by a water place (probably) |
| Québec | Algonquian | Place where the river narrows (meaning the site of the present-day city of Québec) |
| Saskatchewan | Cree | Fast flowing |
| Tahoma | The Native American name for Mount Rainier, Washington State | |
| Tennessee | Cherokee | From the name of a Cherokee village |
| Texas | Caddo | Friends |
| Tse'bit'ai or Tse bit'a'i | Navajo (presumably) | The Native American name for Shiprock, New Mexico (the peak, not the nearby town). Punctuation varies between sources. |
| Tulsa, Oklahoma | Creek | From Tullahassee, the Creek word for old town |
| Tuscaloosa, Alabama | From the Choctaw leader Tuskaloosa (Black Warrior) | |
| Utah | From the Ute people | |
| Wisconsin | Ojibwa | Gathering of the water (possibly) |
| Wyoming | Delaware/Lenape/Leni-Lenape | Place of the big plain |
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Most recently modified 1-Mar-06