The name ''Nigeria'' was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was coined on January 8, 1897, by British journalist Flora Shaw, who later married Lord Lugard, a British colonial administrator. The neighbouring Niger takes its name from the same river. The origin of the name ''Niger'', which originally applied to only the middle reaches of the Niger River, is uncertain. The word is likely an alteration of the Tuareg name ''egerew n-igerewen'' used by inhabitants along the middle reaches of the river around Timbuktu before 19th-century European colonialism.