How did Buffalo, New York, get its unique name?

It is a well known fact that the City of Buffalo received its name from the creek of the same name. However, the origin of the creek's name is unclear, with several unproven theories being debated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York

The origin of the name of the city in New York State is disputed, but it probably derives from the name of an Indian chief who lived by the creek now known as Buffalo Creek.

(Copied from Brewer’s Dictionary of Names).

The City of Buffalo, New York got its name in the following way: When the French explorers of the 1600s saw the Niagara River they thought it quite beautiful. The Indians with whom they were trading heard them refer to the river as "Belle Fleuve" which became Buffalo in their ears unfamiliar with the French language.

In the same manner it is not difficult to follow the corruption of simple hebrew words to the many mispronunciations, that proliferated amongst Masonic researchers, unfamiliar with the hebrew language and anxious to find sources and deeper meanings.


kena.org/hirams/1998/PHL-DE98.HTM no longer exists

Origin of name

The City of Buffalo received its name from the creek that flows through it. However, the origin of the creek's name is unclear, with several unproven theories existing. One holds that the name is an anglicized form of the French name Beau Fleuve (beautiful river), which was supposedly an exclamation uttered by Louis Hennepin when he first saw the stream; this is thought to be unlikely, as no period sources contain this quote. Early French explorers reported the abundance of buffalo on the south shore of Lake Erie, but their presence on the banks of Buffalo Creek is still a matter of debate, so the origin of the name of the creek is still uncertain. Neither the Native American name ("Place of the Basswoods") or the French name ("River of Horses") survived, so the current name likely dates to the British occupation which began with the capture of Fort Niagara in 1759. Also given credence by local historians is the possibility that an interpreter mistranslated the Native American word for "beaver" as "buffalo" - the words being very similar - at a treaty-signing at present-day Rome, New York in 1784. The theory assumes that because there were beaver here, the creek was probably called Beaver Creek rather than Buffalo Creek. Another theory holds that a Seneca Indian lived there, whose name meant "buffalo," and was translated as such by the English pioneers. The stream where he lived became Buffalo Creek.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Buffalo,_New_York

"Originally, Buffalo is named for Buffalo Creek, a small waterway flowing through the area, but the origin of the creek's name is a total mystery. Some folks claim it was named for a Native American chief of some notoriety, others stand by the idea that it is in fact derived from the presence of the aforementioned land mammal. The most interesting theory though, is that it came about as a corruption of a name given to the area by French fur trappers in the seventeenth or eighteenth century - Beau Fleuve or Belle Fleuve, both loosely translated as "beautiful water". It's likely we'll never know, but what is clear is that Buffalo, NY has adopted the buffalo as the city's mascot, which led to the shape of the Erie Basin Marina."

http://www.trivialtraveler.com/2014/03/28/buffalo/

I do not find the "beau fleuve" theory credible at all. In French, a fleuve is a stream that discharges directly into the sea, while Buffalo Creek only discharges into Lake Erie. Fleuve is masculine, and even uneducated trappers would not call a real fleuve (like the St. Lawrence River) "belle." http://fr.thefreedictionary.com/fleuves

Place name stories based on fanciful corruptions abound around the world, and a great many of them are false. "The process of folk etymology usually took over, whereby a false meaning was extracted from a name based on its structure or sounds." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymy