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
Kamiakin (Native American leader) Rock Lake in Whitman County, Washington in 1864, where he lived until his death. Kamiakin was of mixed Nez Perce, Spokane and Yakama ancestry. His father Ki-yi-yah was the son of a Nez Perce father and a Spokane mother. His mother was Yakama. In 1825 Kamiakin married Sal-kow, also a Yakama, whose father "Te-i-as" and grandfather "Weowikt" were leaders in the tribe. Kamiakin later married Colestah, also a Yakama. In 1855 Isaac Stevens, the new Washington Territory governor, was anxious to extinguish claims to traditional lands by regional tribes and free up Native American land for sale to European Americans,