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[Opinions] Re: Native American names
in reply to a message by Felie
They're not used widely (although there are exceptions, for some, like Winona), and there aren't that many people who speak indigenous languages as their first language anymore...even among people who grew up on reservations, but I might be wrong about that. The words I know are places names. History of the tribes isn't really taught about in US schools, and it's hard to find information about them without digging; generally people who don't have a person in their immediate (living) family or friend circle that grew up on a reservation or goes to events like pow wows knows much about their history. Or at least that seemed true for where I grew up, which was east coast; the most well-known ones from there might be the Powhatan, the Iroquois, and Cherokee...there's lots of tribes, though:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federally_recognized_tribes_by_stateAs noted by the 2000 U.S. Census, 99,551 American Indians lived in North Carolina, making up 1.24 percent of the population. This total is for people identifying themselves as American Indian alone. The number is more than 130,000 when including American Indian in combination with other races. The State of North Carolina recognizes eight tribes:Eastern Band of Cherokee (tribal reservation in the Mountains)
Coharie (Sampson and Harnett counties)
Lumbee (Robeson and surrounding counties)
Haliwa-Saponi (Halifax and Warren counties)
Sappony (Person County)
Meherrin (Hertford and surrounding counties)
Occaneechi Band of Saponi Nation (Alamance and surrounding counties)
Waccamaw-Siouan (Columbus and Bladen counties)

I think in pre-school we did an exercise in which we combined a verb with an animal in order to give ourselves "Indian names", and the one I picked was something like Listening Swan, which might be part of why I'm fond of Swanhild (plus I think swans are scary, so the battle part seems appropriate).Shikoba, Wapasha, Sequoia sound neat, and Kennebec, Tennessee, Seneca, Cherokee are place names I like, but I wouldn't seriously consider using those. I've heard of Lakota sisters named Red Dawn and Red Fawn. I get the impression Bear and Fawn are semi-popular with Native Americans...or were a generation ago.I like Winona. I like the sound by itself, and it doesn't have a bad meaning, but I'm also fond of it in part because I think Winona LaDuke is cool.

This message was edited 3/8/2019, 11:03 AM

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