How do you translate American names to Indian names?

Answer 1

It is not usually possible to translate a name into any native American language, since there is no direct correlation. Native naming traditions are completely unlike modern American names, some of which are meaningless modern inventions and others have their roots in European traditional names.

For example the Sauk leader known widely as "Black Hawk" was really called Makata imeshekiakiak, meaning Black Sparrowhawk. No American name is anything like this in meaning (sparrowhawks are not black, but for native Americans a spirit animal or bird can be any colour).

In some cases native attempts at pronouncing English or French names were influenced by the lack of certain sounds in the native languages: for example, the Mi'kmaq could not say the French name Francois-Joseph properly and instead used Blamswe-Zozep - but this is not a translation, simply a native attempt to say the unfamiliar foreign name.

The same applies to many other native American languages.

In the Crow language of Montana, when referring to a specific person, native names traditionally end with "sh". So if they are talking about someone today who is named Joe, they say Joesh - again this is not a translation, simply a combination of a modern English name and a native name ending.