"Ever since the beginning of time, everything has had a name, every hill and valley, river, lake and stream. Every roadway, town and county across the country has a name, and all of those names have a history of some kind behind them. Many areas have an Indian ancestry or a French connection, including the names of both Kansas and Missouri.

More than 200 years ago, following the Louisiana Purchase, before we came along, there were numerous French fur trappers and traders, along with thousands of Native Americans living across today’s Kansas and Missouri. In our neighborhood alone, there were Kickapoo, Kanza, Shawnee, Sioux, Osage, Delaware, Wyandotte, Sac, Fox, Ioway, Otto, Miami and the Missouria Indian tribes, just to name a few. And naturally, those early folks left behind many of the community and state names we still have today. How many can you think of right off the top of your head?

Most people stumble over the pronunciation of some the French names, unless they happened to have taken French in high school. We even blow it on some of our Native American handles. Some people pronounce our state Missour-ee, and others pronounce it Missour-rah! It is my understanding that either pronunciation is deemed proper in today’s world. However, the original way to say the word was Missour-rah. It was probably the British who tried to correct the rest of us."

Get the Story:
Ted Stillwell: Name origins have roots in many languages (The Independence Examiner 10/27)