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 policy of the Barack Obama administration Obama signed Executive Order 13592, which seeks to improve educational opportunities for American Indian and Alaska Natives.Obama has been praised by many tribal leaders, including those who claim he has done more for Native Americans than all of his predecessors combined. Many Native American peoples struggle to trust federal governments at all; as Tex "Red Tipped Arrow" Hall, tribal chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in North Dakota said, "our fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers have gone to Washington, and there's been no promises made and no promises kept. That's why we’ve not trusted the federal government."