How did "Chicago" got it's name?

Question

I know it came from Indian people but who? Why they named it Chicago? How did it all happened?

Answer 1

You are going think this is crazy but Chicago actually is named after an early WHITE settler named Lennie Chicago. He obviously named it after himself. He is written about in Charles Panati's book, "Why Did They Name It...." (Penguin Books, 1988, pp. 34-36)

Answer 2

Well from what I gather from the websites I looked at, it seems the city of Chicago was named after the Chicago River. How the River got it's name, I'm not sure but I'm guessing it's an Indian word.

Answer 3

The Indian word it actually came from was "chicagoua" which was their word for a wild garlic plant that grew abundantly along Lake Michigan. This what the Miami Indians called it and the spelling came from a man called Father Gravier who attempted to spell the word as he heard them speak it.. When the French arrived in the 1600's, they called the city Chicagou. Later, it was shortened to Chicago by the Potawatomi Indians (who displaced the Miami Indians) as that name means "onion" and "garlic" in their language.

Answer 4

The name Chicago is derived from the local Indian word chicagoua for the native garlic plant (not onion) Allium tricoccum. This garlic (in French: ail sauvage) grew in abundance on the south end of Lake Michigan on the wooded banks of the extensive river system which bore the same name, chicagoua. Father Gravier, a thorough student of the local Miami language, introduced the spelling chicagoua, or chicagou8, in the 1690`s, attempting to express the inflection which the Indians gave to the last syllable of the word.

The French who began arriving here in 1673 were probably confused by the Indian use of this name for several rivers. They usually wrote it as Chicagou. Gradually other names were given to the streams composing this system: Des Plaines, Saganashkee (Sag), Calumet (Grand and Little), Hickory Creek, Guillory (for the north branch of the present Chicago River), and Chicago or Portage River (for the south branch). Students of early Chicago history likewise tend to get confused, unaware of these name changes, but early French maps and narratives, when carefully interpreted, make it possible to discover who and what was where, and when.

As a name for a place, as distinct from a river, Chicagou appears first in Chicagoumeman, the native name for the mouth of the present Chicago River, where Fort Dearborn was built in 1803. As a name for a place where people lived, the simple Chicagou was first used by the French about 1685 for a Jesuit mission and French army post at the site of Marquette`s 1675 camp along the south branch. This interpretation, and the etymology of the name Chicago, derive largely from the memoirs of Henri Joutel, the soldier-naturalist associate of La Salle on his fatal last journey, 1684-1687, to Texas. Joutel spent nearly three weeks in the Chicagou area in 1687-88, and one of his first investigations was into the origin of this name which he had heard from La Salle and many others. His detailed description of the plant, its "ail sauvage" taste, its differences from the native onion and its maple forest habitat, point unambiguously to Allium tricoccum.

English accounts tracing the name to a "wild onion" date from after 1800, when different groups of Indians, mainly Potawatomi, had displaced the original Miami. In the Potawatomi language, chicago meant both the native garlic and the wild onion.

The downtown Chicago or Fort Dearborn area, exposed to wind, weather and passing enemies, was not where the local Miami and other people lived when Frenchmen, led by Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, S.J., began arriving in 1673. In early 1675 Marquette found a group of Illinois merely camped there before setting out for the Green Bay area. The local population`s villages were scattered along rivers and streams in more sheltered environments. Archaeologists have identified dozens of places in the greater Chicago area where they lived, and a few were vaguely recorded by the early French.

Answer 5

It came from the name of a river in the area that smelled bad. The Chicago or "Skunk" river literally translates as "wild-Onion".

Answer 6

It was an native american word.
Later pronounced in english as chicago.
I believe it was one of the great lakes tribes. As most of the local tribes didnt venture in that area.
It means " Bad Smell"
As early chicago was swamp and wetlands.....