List of Ohio placenames of Native American origin

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The following list includes settlements, geographic features, and political subdivisions of Ohio whose names are derived from Native American languages.

Contents

Listings

State

Counties

Settlements

  • Catawba Island - Name of a Siouan speaking tribe from North Carolina who participated in many wars and conflicts, some of which being in Ohio. [24]
  • Chickasaw - name of a tribe from Kentucky and Tennessee.
  • Chillicothe - Shawnee. Chalakatha, one of the Shawnee bands. [25]
  • Chippewa Lake
  • Choctaw Lake - name of a tribe from Mississippi.
  • Conneaut
  • Guyan - Shortened from French name for an Iroquoian Native tribe from West Virginia who were later absorbed into the Ohio Seneca—the Guyandotte (Also Little Mingo, Tiontatecaga. Not to be confused with Wyandot.)
  • Metamora - Wampanoag?. Name comes from a play about a Native American from the Wampanoag people of New England. [26]
  • Mingo Junction - Mingo is common nickname for the Ohio Seneca people. Variant of Mingwe, what the Lenape once called the related Susquehannock Indians of Pennsylvania.
  • Mississinawa - Miami. Name of a river tributary to the Wabash. From nimacihsinwi, "it lies on a slope."
  • Montezuma - named for the last Tlatoani (Emperor) of the Aztec Empire, Moctezuma II.
  • Nimishillen - Lenape. from Ni + Missilla, or Waters of the Black Alder.
  • Ontario - Huron/ Wyandot. Named for Lake Ontario. Comes from Huron word which means Lake.
  • Pataskala - Lenape. Unknown (May be of Siouan origin?)
  • Piqua – Shawnee Pekowi , name of one of the five divisions of the Shawnee.
  • Pusheta - Shawnee. Named after a local Chief. [27]
  • Powhatan Point - name of an Algonquian tribe from Virginia. The first Shawnee split away from them in the mid-1600s.
  • Shawnee - Named for the Shawnee people
  • Texas - Named for the state, which derives its name from taysha, in Caddoan Native American language. Allegedly means friend.
  • Tontogany - Named after a local Chief. Most likely of Wyandot origin.
  • Tymochtee - Wyandot. Allegedly means 'stream around the plains.' [28]
  • Wabash - Common name of a tribe from Indiana
  • Wapakoneta – from Shawnee Wa·po’kanite 'Place of White Bones' (wa·pa 'white'+(h)o’kani 'bone'+-ite locative suffix). [29] [30] [31]
  • Wauseon - Odawa. Named for Chief among the Potowatomi. [32]

Bodies of water

  • Kinnikinnick Creek - Algonquian origin, multiple Tribes. Word refers to a person's personal smoking tobacco mix, or any plant someone would mix with their own tobacco for flavor, medicinal purposes or to extend the life of their personal tobacco supply. Can also refer to a specific plant in English, known As Kinnikinnick in the Eastern US, Bear berry in Canada and Manzanita on the West Coast.
  • Kokosing River - Lenape. From Gokhos + -ing, generally translating to "Owl, here."
  • Lake Erie
  • Lake Mohawk - Named after tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy.
  • Mahoning River - Lenape. Allegedly means "Upon here is a deer lick," but this may be incorrect. May come from Ma + aney + -ing, or, roughly, "There is the path." [4]
  • Maumee River - Miami. A nickname or spelling variant for the Miami people. [33] [34]
  • Mohican River - Name of an Algonquian tribe from New York who were closely related to the Lenape.
  • Olentangy River - Lenape. Allegedly, river of red paint.
  • Pymatuning Lake – Lenape. Either corruption or variation on the word, "Pemuteneyig." Likely translation could be, "Upon this place, Towns are near." [4] Or it could be a reference to the sweat-lodge of a hunting camp. According to etymologist August C. Mahr it's from the Munsee dialect of Lenape word Piim/'attoon/'nk meaning 'sweating oneself, it is put here,' or, in idiomatic English 'here are facilities for sweating oneself.' [35] The Moravian missionary John Heckewelder gives a similar etymology for Pomonkey Creek in Maryland. [36]
  • Shenango River – Seneca. Possibly from gesho:ne:gwa:h (keh-s-hoh-ney-g-wah) which means something along the lines of "It's right behind me." [37]
  • Walhonding River - Lenape. Unknown

See also

References

Citations

  1. ↑ "Native Ohio". American Indian Studies. Ohio State University. Archived from the original on February 2, 2007. Retrieved February 25, 2007.
  2. 1 2 3 Froman, Francis & Keye, Alfred J. "English-Cayuga/ Cayuga-English Dictionary", 2014.
  3. ↑ Mahr, August C. (November 1959). "Practical Reasons for Algonkian Indian Stream and Place Names". Ohio Journal of Science. 59 (6): 365–375. hdl:1811/4658. ISSN   0030-0950.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Lenape Dictionary" (PDF). October 2000. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Cuyahoga River". The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Onondaga Animal Words". Native Languages of the Americas. Archived from the original on May 11, 2012. Retrieved May 23, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Seneca Animal Words". Native Languages of the Americas. Archived from the original on May 11, 2012. Retrieved May 24, 2012.
  8. ↑ "Geauga County, Ohio". Rootsweb. Archived from the original on October 28, 2010. Retrieved May 23, 2012.
  9. ↑ Historical Society of Geauga County, O. (1880). Pioneer and General History of Geauga County: With Sketches of Some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men. Historical Society of Geauga County. p. 24.
  10. ↑ Chafe, Wallace L. "Handbook of the Seneca Language". 2007
  11. ↑ Beuchel, Eugene & Manhart S. J., Paul "Lakota Dictionary: Lakota-English/ English-Lakota". 2002
  12. ↑ Johnson, Basil "The Manitous: The Spiritual World of the Ojibwe". 2001
  13. ↑ Bruchac, Joseph "The Wind Eagle & Other Abenaki Stories". 1985
  14. ↑ "First Nations Longhouse Church – Vancouver, British Columbia – Public & Government Service – Facebook". www.Facebook.com. Retrieved August 17, 2017.
  15. ↑ Mahr, August C. (1957). "Indian River and Place Names in Ohio". Ohio History. 66 (2). Ohio Historical Society: 137–158. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
  16. ↑ "mus". Lenape Talking Dictionary. Archived from the original on March 15, 2012. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
  17. ↑ "wëshkinkw". Lenape Talking Dictionary. Archived from the original on February 1, 2016. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
  18. ↑ "Shawnees Webpage". Shawnee's Reservation. 1997. Retrieved 2013-04-26.
  19. ↑ John E. Kleber (18 May 1992). The Kentucky Encyclopedia. University Press of Kentucky. p. 815. ISBN   978-0-8131-2883-2. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
  20. ↑ Johnston, John (1858). Vocabularies of the Shawanoese and Wyandott Languages, etc. Archived from the original on June 7, 2012. Retrieved May 20, 2012.
  21. 1 2 "Wyandot Dictionary" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on July 16, 2014. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
  22. ↑ Hanna, Charles A. (1911). The Wilderness Trail. New York: Knickerbocker Press. p. 118. ISBN   9781404754638. Archived from the original on October 31, 2021. Retrieved June 1, 2012.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  23. ↑ "Tuscarora Nation – History". www.TuscaroraNationNC.com. Archived from the original on September 8, 2014. Retrieved August 17, 2017.
  24. ↑ palmettohistory.org/archaeology/CatawbaProject.pdf
  25. ↑ "Chalakatha Cornstalk – Historical records and family trees – MyHeritage". www.MyHeritage.com. Retrieved August 17, 2017.
  26. ↑ "Explore & Learn - Old Sturbridge Village". resources.osv.org.
  27. ↑ Sutton, Robert (1880). History of Auglaize County, Ohio: with the Indian history of Wapakoneta, and the first settlement of the county, p. 169.
  28. ↑ Bright, William (2004). Native American Placenames of the United States. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 527. ISBN   978-0-8061-3598-4.
  29. ↑ Schutz, Noel. "Colors". Shawnee Traditions. Archived from the original on June 23, 2012. Retrieved June 1, 2012.
  30. ↑ "bone: hoʔkani" Wick R. Miller, "An Outline of Shawnee Historical Phonology" International Journal of American Linguist Vol. 25, No. 1 (Jan., 1959), pp. 16-21 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1263919 Archived 2016-10-09 at the Wayback Machine
  31. ↑ Ohio Historical Society, 2005, "Treaty of Wapakoneta (1831)", Ohio History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History.
  32. ↑ "Ohio History Central, Wauseon, Ohio". Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  33. ↑ "EARLY INDIAN MIGRATION IN OHIO". GenealogyTrails.com. Retrieved August 17, 2017.
  34. ↑ Hale, Horatio "The Iroquois Book of Rites." (1883) pgs 10-15.
  35. ↑ Mahr, August C. (1957). "Indian River and Place Names in Ohio". Ohio History. 66 (2). Ohio Historical Society: 137–158.
  36. ↑ Heckewelder, John, and Peter S. Du Ponceau. “Names Which the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians, Who Once Inhabited This Country, Had Given to Rivers, Streams, Places, &c. &c. within the Now States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia: And Also Names of Chieftains and Distinguished Men of That Nation; With the Significations of Those Names, and Biographical Sketches of Some of Those Men. By the Late Rev. John Heckewelder, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Communicated to the American Philosophical Society April 5, 1822, and Now Published by Their Order; Revised and Prepared for the Press by Peter S. Du Ponceau.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 4, 1834, pp. 351–96. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1004837.
  37. ↑ Chafe, Wallace "English-Seneca Dictionary".
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