In Wisconsin, there's no shortage of cities and towns with the syllable "wau" in them. Around here, there's Waukesha, Milwaukee, Pewaukee and Wawautosa. Venture farther afield and there's Wausau, Ashwaubenon, Waunakee, Waupaca and Waupun.
With all of these "wau" cities and towns, you've got to assume that the syllable "wau" must mean something specific. However, that assumption would be wrong.
According to John Nichols, a linguist and professor at the University of Minnesota, there is not a shared meaning for all occurrences of this syllable in the Native American words that may underlie these names. Basically, this means that "wau" doesn't have a single meaning, but can mean different things in different words, depending both on the language and on the rest of the word.
For example, if it's true that Wauwatosa is from a word for "firefly" in an Algonquian language, then, in that word, "wau" probably has something to do with "light" or "bright," Nichols said. In the word "Milwaukee," on the other hand, which some say comes from an Algonquian word for "good land/earth," the "wau" only happens because you're combining "milw" (good) with something like "aki" (earth). So in that case, the "wau" isn't a separate, meaningful element on its own.
Because Nichols hasn't done an extensive study of Wisconsin "wau" place names, he said he couldn't be certain about the origin of any of these names. However, he did say that Waukesha might be from the word for "fox" in an Algonquian language, but probably isn't from an Ojibwe word as has been theorized.
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