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
Spirit Lake Tribe treaty with the United States that established a reservation for Dakotas who had not been forcibly relocated to Crow Creek Reservation in what is now called South Dakota. The name "Devils Lake" is a calque of the Dakota phrase "mni wak’áŋ" (literally: spirit water), which is also reflected in the names of the Spirit Lake Tribe and the nearby town of Minnewaukan. The Dakota called the lake "mni wak’áŋ chante", which separately translate as "mni" (water), "wak’áŋ" (literally "pure source" but often translated as "spirit" or "sacred"), and "chante" (heart). European-American settlers misconstrued this name to mean "Bad Spirit Lake",