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Monowi - Meaning "flower", this town was so named because there were so many wild flowers growing in the vicinity. Nehawka - An approximation to the Omaha and Otoe Indian name of a nearby creek meaning "rustling water." Nemaha - Named after the Nemaha River, based on an Otoe word meaning "swampy water." [53]
One of the many ways Native American influence shines through the United States is in our place names. Does your town's name have Native American roots? The answer might surprise you
The word pueblo is the Spanish word both for "town" or "village" and for "people". It comes from the Latin root word populus meaning "people". Spanish colonials applied the term to their own civic settlements, but to only those Native American settlements having fixed locations and permanent buildings.
Couchiching: Derived from the Ojibwe gojijiing, meaning "inlet." Deseronto: Named for Captain John Deseronto, a native Mohawk leader who was a captain in the British Military Forces during the American Revolutionary War. Eramosa: Thought to be derived from the word un-ne-mo-sah (possibly meaning "black dog", "dead dog", or simply "dog").
The primary Native American languages in Michigan are Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi, all of which are dialects of Algonquin. Some other places names in Michigan are found to be derived from Sauk , Oneida , Wyandot , Abenaki , Shawnee , Mohawk , Seneca , Seminole , Iroquois , and Delaware , although many of these tribes are not found in Michigan.
Bashi – from the Choctaw phrase bachaya, meaning "line" or "row". Bogue Chitto – from the Choctaw phrase book chito, meaning "big creek". [16] Boligee – from the Choctaw phrase boolitusha, meaning "to strike and cut into pieces". [17] Cahaba – from the Choctaw phrase oka-uba, meaning "water from above". [18] Shared with the Cahaba River.
The meanings of the latter category are traditional only, but the tradition may not necessarily descend from a native speaker. It may have been a settler's conjecture, passed on through the social mechanism of the sacred words of the forefathers or simply because no other interpretation was available.
A great many names that appear to be Native American in origin were created by non-Natives with at best a rudimentary grasp of native languages. Pasadena, California's early Anglo residents, looking for a pleasant sounding name for the town, used the Ojibwe word pa-sa-de-na, which means of the valley.