Dakota (given name) Dakota (given name) Dakota is a unisex given name derived from the name of an indigenous Native American tribe: Dakota people or from the name of two states in the United States: North Dakota and South Dakota which are also derived from the Dakota people local to that area. The name is translated to mean "friend", "friendly" or "allies" in the Yankton-Yanktonai and Santee dialects of the Lakota Sioux language. The name has been in occasional use for both sexes in the United States since at least the 1940s. The name's popularity grew in the 1990s in the US. It
Native American slave ownership worked against their best interests." In 1751, South Carolina law stated: "The carrying of Negroes among the Indians has all along been thought detrimental, as an intimacy ought to be avoided." Sometimes Native Americans resented the presence of African Americans. The "Catawaba tribe in 1752 showed great anger and bitter resentment when an African American came among them as a trader." To gain favor with Europeans, the Cherokee exhibited the strongest color prejudice of all Native Americans. Native Americans were rewarded if they returned escaped slaves, and African Americans were rewarded for fighting in the late 19th-century Indian Wars. African