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 Journalists Association Country. Mary Hudetz, editor-in-chief of Native Peoples Magazine, is the current president. Student chapters are located at the University of Arizona and Columbia University. The association was founded as the "Native American Press Association" in 1984 with initial funding provided by the Gannett Foundation. Adrian C. Louis, Jose Barreiro, Tim Giago, and Bill Dulaney, among others, were founding members. The organization was headquartered at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota as of 2002. In 2003 it moved into the Al Neuharth Media Center, where it shared space with the Freedom Forum. In 2008, it moved to the