What's in a name

What’s in a Name?

During our ride, we saw many usually names of places, people and bodies of water. The different names interested me. My curiosities lead me to look some of them up. Some of the names that we encountered were:  Susquehanna, Lumbee, Occoquan, Miccosukee, Pontchartrain, Okeechobee, Tchoupitoulas, Powhatan, Coley and Benton.   I included our last names because I looked up Coley.  (I don’t remember what I found. I will look again) I also saw a Benton, Tennessee and a Benton, Mississippi. The one in Mississippi was exit 124 off the road we were travelling.

Susquehanna is a river. Occoquan is another river.  Pontchartrain is a lake in Louisiana. Some of the other bodies of water that we saw were, naturally, the Atlantic Ocean, Chesapeake Bay, the Potomac, the Mississippi, the Florida Bay and the James River in Virginia. Jim said that this river was named after him.  As you know, we travelled Alligator Alley in the Florida Everglades.

The Lumbee Indians were discussed at my friend Vanessa’s house in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  This is the largest tribe in North Carolina and the 9^th in the nation. The name of this tribe came from the Lumber River.  They have been recognized as a tribe in the state of North Carolina since 1885, but are still undergoing the process of seeking federal recognition.  The Miccosukee is a tribe of Indians in Florida. This is a federally recognized Indian tribe residing in the Florida Everglades. Tchoupitoulas is a street name that we saw in New Orleans. It is named from an extinct Indian tribe. I also learned from the internet that there is a 2012 documentary about three (3) brothers who discover the scenes of late-night New Orleans.  I should watch it. We saw the name Okeechobee in West Palm Beach and then several other times after that.  It is a city, a lake and a street in Florida. There are Okeechobee schools, counties and a battlefield area.  It is the largest freshwater lake in Florida and the 7^th largest freshwater lake in the United States. The name comes from Hitchiti word Oki (water) and Chubi (big) and means “Big Water”