The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail receives its name from the Metacomet Trail in Connecticut, of which it is a logical extension, and from Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. The name "Metacomet" is derived from Metacom, the 17th-century Native American leader and son of Massasoit of the Wampanoag tribe of southern New England. The term Monadnock is an Abenaki-derived word used to describe a mountain. It has come to be used by American geologists to describe any isolated mountain formed from the exposure of a harder rock as a result of the erosion of a softer rock that once surrounded it.