Siouan place name (Elkhorn)

[Rory M Larson]

> On Mon, 14 Jun 2004, Louis Garcia wrote:
>> In Dakota any fork in an object (in this case River) is called Ojate or
>> Fork. Is it possible that the Town of Elkhorne, NE is near a fork, or
>> where the Elkhorn River enters the main River. later, Louie

> Actually the town in question is called Norfolk, NE, which is pronounced
> Norfork, I gather, but this is just English phonology and hasn't anything
> to do with forks.

The story I've heard-- I can't remember the source-- is that
the name is indeed for the fork.  It seems the town was named
by early Scandinavian settlers in the 19th century who sent
their application to Washington for the name of Norfork, i.e.
"North Fork".  The Anglicanoid bureaucrats in Washington
assumed the hicks wanted to name their town after the Virginia
town of Norfolk, itself named after the English shire.
Accordingly, they accepted the name, but "corrected" the
spelling.  When this got back to Nebraska, the citizens of
the town were in a quandary.  They wanted the name of "Norfork",
but found themselves registered as "Norfolk".  An application
for a town name was expensive, and to get the name corrected
back to what they wanted would require that they go through
the process again.  So they decided to accept the spelling
of "Norfolk", but they would continue to pronounce it as it
was supposed to be: "Norfork".  This dichotomy between the
written and the spoken forms of the name has continued down
to the present day.

Rory