June 14, 1968 NM Northwestern
Wisconsin is certainly awash in unique place names- French,
German, and Indian influences among the origins of place names In 1908, P.V.
Lawson sought to explain some of these in his History of WInnebago County and
the Northwestern was only too kind to give us this concise guide in 1968.
Some of these make me scratch my head,
particularly his explanation for the name Menasha. But others make much more
sense, such as Tecos Point as the most likely root for Tayco Street, for example,
even though it's not said here. The word Neenah for "water" is pretty
consistent throughout the sources I've read but as for Menasha, I've seen it
referenced in other works as a Winnebago word meaning "the settlement on
the island," "thorn," or just "island."
"Mini-ha-ha," as used by Lawson
here is close to the fictional Native American woman Minnehaha, as documented
in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 epic poem The Song of Hiawatha and seems a
bit too convenient to use here. A recent reference I've found states that the
name is often incorrectly said to mean "laughing water", though in
reality it translates to "waterfall" or "rapid water" in
Dakota. Dakota is the parent language of the WInnebago or Ho-Chunk nation, so
that part falls into place, but still, I'm skeptical that this is the
definitive explanation for the name of our fair town.
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