States whose names are Indian-affiliated

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

A lot of the origin of these names is sketchy. Colorado is thought to come from the Spanish (forgive my spelling, I never took Spanish) "Colo Rojo" meaning "colored red". However, there are some other ideas of the origin of this name as well.
Colorado Department of Personnel & Administration (DPA) Division of Information Technologies (DoIT) - 55k - Cached - Similar pages

Thanks for the link pittnurse....very interesting stuff about Colorado that I didn't know!

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by ajf131

Thanks for the link pittnurse....very interesting stuff about Colorado that I didn't know!

You're welcome!

[Katarina Witt]

Nebraska: means "flatwater" in some Native American language. (AKA, the Platte River)

[houstoner]

Originally Posted by ajf131

Alabama definitely now that I think about it...yea it does sound Indian.

I only knew that because of the Alabama-Coushatta tribe here in Texas and the big pow-wow they have every year.

[Baja Boomer]

Originally Posted by ajf131

Nevada actually sounds Indian-affiliated. Btw, Colorado is Spanish-affiliated, not Indian.

Nevada is Spanish also. It means "snow-capped". Colorado means "ruddy" or "reddish" and refers to the color of the Colorado River.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by ekg56

Wisconsin was named by the Chippewa Indians but the way it is pronounced today is influenced by the French.

So is the way we pronounce Ojibwe.

For a German state, it's odd how everything in Wisconsin has French names. Seems that French was the most common language in Wisconsin until the wave of German immigration came and eventually learned English.

[Baja Boomer]

For what it's worth, InfoPlease has a list of States' names and their origins. Don't know how accurate it is, but it looks pretty decent.

I heard as a kid that Utah was a totally made up name that was chosen when the "territory" applied to become a state, so as to deflect attention from its Mormon roots. InfoPlease says it's from the Ute tribe, meaning “people of the mountains”.

Anyhow, here's the link: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0854966.html