A Note on Indian Names

The idea that the way we speak alters the way we think and perceive has become well-established. We do not simply see things as they “are”; our perception brings with it powerful cultural constructions, defined by our beliefs and reinforced most of all by the assumptions in our language. We can see one major, and pertinent, example in the distinction between literacy and orality.

In most languages from oral cultures, including most American Indian languages, the verb has the central place our language reserves for the noun. Writing makes words more “thing-like.” The written word exists as a thing, which leads literate thought immediately into considerations of the ephemeral, abstract thing behind the apparent thing. The relationship between the written word “tree,” and the branching, woody plant out in the field, creates the mental template for other, similar ideas, from Plato’s “world of Forms,” which he formualted almost immediately after Athens became a literate society, to the concept of the soul that appeared in Judaism alongside the Greek alphabet and Plato’s philosophy in the Hellenistic era.

By contrast, in an oral society, words exist only as sounds; events, rather than things. All information exchange occurs inside of a social context, in a “long chain of interlocking conversations.” Words do not exist as things, but as calls. As a result, people in such languages do not think about souls any more than they think of Platonic Forms. What they mean by “spirit” differs markedly from our own, literate understanding of such a thing. Social exchange and relationship forms the context for all information and existence; the precise syntax of the words does not matter as much as their rhythm, flow and pattern. Summed up, the translation of language into a collection of written artifacts, things, sets the literate mind to percieve a universe of objects, while the retention of language in a social event context sets the oral mind to percieve a universe of relationships. Thus, literate languages like ours tend to emphasize nouns, while oral languages tend to emphasize verbs. In such languages, speakers may go for great lengths of time without ever uttering a noun, since the relationships, not the entities connected by them, matter most.

Identity, too, changes under such assumptions. In a universe of objects, identity has a fixed, static quality. You “are” an object like anything else, with particular traits and properties. In a universe of relationships, “you” acts like a verb, and identity becomes a fluid question of what relationships you engage in at any particular moment. Thus, names act more like nicknames, and moreover, they serve primarily as verbs describing a person, rather than the labels we use them for in English.

This relates to Indian names because it explains why they sound so silly in English translation; they do not simply translate across languages, but attempt to translate from a verb-based universe of relationships, into a noun-based universe of things. So an “Indian name” like “Dances with Wolves” may sound silly in English translation, but in its original context, it acted as a verb, describing a person, something more like “dances-with-wolves-ly personing.” Some cultures used names more or less permanently than others, but all used names as verbs rather than nouns, and as descriptors of the person’s most unique characteristics.

In this campaign, we have tried to translate the Indian names of people and places that use languages the characters would know, to try to help preserve as best we can the sense of verb-like descriptors used as names. One of our goals for this campaign tries to make us more comfortable with that kind of verb-based, descriptive form of English that shies away from “to be” and the constant reliance on nouns. So, Virginia Dare answers to the name “White Doe,” not as a noun, but as a verb; the full form might sound more like, “white-doe-ly personing.”

Some Indian Names used in this Campaign

Tribal names

Culture Names

Indian name	English translation	Indian language
Mdachewo’mik, “Massawomek”	Great Plains People	Powhatan
Ohanoak, “Roanoke”	Northern People	Secotan
Chohanoak, “Chowanoc”	Southern People	Secotan
Mandoag	Treacherous People	Powhatan
Powhatan	Falling Water	Powhatan
Ska-ru-reh	Dogsbane People	Tuscarora
Yeinari	Disliked People, the Contemptible People, the Mean People	Tuscarora

Place Names

Indian name	English translation	Indian language	Nearest Modern Settlement
Croatoan	Dark Water	Secotan	Manteo, NC
Powhatan	Falling Water	Powhatan	Richmond, VA
Tenakomakah	Densely Inhabited Land	Powhatan	Virginia
Namassingakent	Plenty of Fish	Potomac	Alexandria, VA
Cohongarooton	River of Geese	Potomac	Potomac River
Monongahela	River with the Sliding Banks	Lenni Lenape, a.k.a. “Delaware”	Monongahela River
Allegheny	River of the Allegwi	Lenni Lenape	Allegheny River
Ohiyo	Beautiful River	Seneca	Ohio River
Occaneechi	Gathering Place	Algonquian	Clarksville, NC
Ritanoac	Burned Place	Algonquian	Asheboro, NC

Human Names

Indian name	English translation	Indian language
“Manteo” (mantoac)	Wind	Secotan
“Wanchese” (wàbichèsè ?)	Content Not Found: marten	Secotan
Wingina	Fair View	Secotan
Pemisapan	Suspicious View	Secotan
Wahunsonacock, “King Powhatan”	The Falling Water King	Powhatan
Opechancanough	White Soul	Powhatan

Further Reading

Books

• Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
• Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word

Online Articles

• Preconquest Consciousness by E. Richard Sorenson, including a section on “Sense of Name.”
• Writing, Language & Thought
• Toward Understanding E-Prime