Ietan, Iatan, etc.

[R. Rankin]

I tried explaining this name when I was going through
the Siouan names (or supposedly Siouan names) for Bill
Bright.  This was for the "Native American Place Names
of the US" published last year by the OU press.  I'm
afraid I didn't have much luck, and Bill ended up
reproducing what John Rydjord had written about this
name years ago.  Rydjord was well educated and
fascinated with place names.  He knew enough to use the
Osage and other dictionaries pretty judiciously.  But
he also collected lots of erronious etymologies from
other scholars.  I'll reproduce here most of what the
NAPUS volume says:

IATAN (Mo., Platte Co.)  Named for an Oto leader . . .
because of his battles with the Comanche people. who
were sometimes called <Ietan> or <Hietan> (Rydjord
1968).  This word is probably related to IATT (Grant
Parish, LA) (recorded in 1816 as Hietan).  Iatan has
also been used to name a place in Tex. (Mitchell Co.).
A related name may be Yutan (Saunders Co., Neb.)

Iatan/Ietan are shown as being pronounced [ay6tan]
(where 6 is a schwa, like the last vowel in ''sofa'')
and the initial vowel is stressed.  The similar place
name in Louisiana is pronounced [ay6t] and the place in
Texas is pronounced [aytan] with the accent on the last
syllable.  So the letter ''I'' represents [ay], as in
''sigh'', consistently.

So, basically, this does not appear to be a native Otoe
name.  It's the name of somebody or some group that
this particular Otoe chief beat in battle.  And this
DOES fit one of the naming traditions of
Siouan-speaking warriors.  You whip somebody and you
can take his name.  One of the Kaw names that baffled
us for the longest time, Allegawahoo (in various
spellings), was finally located by Justin McBride.  It
was the name of a Pawnee warrior that this particular
Kaw chief had fought and killed.  He then took the
man's name, which meant something like 'Big Elk' in
Pawnee.  So it wasn't a native Kaw name, but a Kaw
chief took it, essentially as a trophy.  I expect that
Iatan has some sort of similar history.  I guess the
next step is to see if ANYbody called the Comanches
[ayatan] or the like.

The only other possibility is the Saunders Co.,
Nebraska place name, Yutan, which is pronounced [yutan]
''yoo-tan'', and is apparently named for the same Otoe
chief.  Accent the first syllable.

Wish I could help more, but this is all I've been able
to dredge up.

Bob