Native American Impact on Naming of Cities ,States, and Geography

While it may not occur to us in everyday life, we often use a major contribution from Native Americans. One of the more obvious but equally important contributions Native Americans gave to the United States was the names of cities, states and geographic locations. From our first contact with east coast tribes to our exploration of the west, colonists and settlers would adopt the names of places and peoples into their own nomenclature

The United States would heavily consider factoring in the names of territory already named by Native Americans when it came to new states. They would even go as far as establishing a code of conduct for naming a state where congress could not name a state anything it wanted, rather it had to take a name already established in the region.¹ This would cause around half of the states in the U.S. to have a name derived in Native American origin. It would be a problem if this was not mentioned: while the United States did take names rooted in the geography of the region, the words were often misinterpreted, sometimes in part due to a communication barrier, other times a lack of attention to detail. Many times tribes would refer to the same thing with a different name,this was due to the different languages of tribes in the area, which could make naming difficult for some.¹ 

 Many of our modern day cities would also in part take on the names given to them by Natives. In many cases, these words would also come from the naming of major geographic locations in the area. For example, Milwaukee, was a misinterpretation of the Potawatomi word mahnahwauk, meaning "council grounds". Another example is the city of Malibu in California. While there is some debate about the actual origin of its name, many suspect it comes from the Chumash tribes' words "mali" and "wu" or "Humaliwo". The former two when put together mean “where the mountains meet the sea,” while the latter means “the surf sounds loudly.” Either of these could be taken to mean the ocean malibu is off the coast of.  

1:Stewart, George R. Names on the land: A historical account of place-naming in the United States. New York, NY: New York Review Books, 2008.

2: “Milwaukee History.” City of Milwaukee: City Clerks office. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://city.milwaukee.gov/cityclerk/MilwaukeeHistory.

3: Miehl, Chris. “Guides: Malibu History: Chumash People and Malibu.” Chumash People and Malibu - Malibu History - Guides at Pepperdine University. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://infoguides.pepperdine.edu/c.php?g=287480&p=9228157#:~:text=Origins%20of%20%27Malibu%27,%22the%20surf%20sounds%20loudly.%22.