One account of its name is that "Taku" is the Tlingit language word for "salmon" but the Taku Tlingit name for themselves "T'aaku Kwáan" translates as "Geese Flood Upriver Tribe"". There are also two "kwaans" of the Tlingit people inland in British Columbia, the "Áa Tlein Kwáan" ("Big Lake Tribe", today organized as the Taku River Tlingit First Nation) and the "Deisleen Kwáan" ("Big Sinew Tribe", today organized as the Teslin Tlingit Council); the territory of the former includes those areas of the Taku basin in British Columbia.