Etymologies of some state names

[Rankin, Robert L]

> "A minor footnote that occurs to me is that the -a, especially in the -(e)a
version is probably the Algonquian animate proximate singular.  Costa 
could confirm that and sources.  (And I think we discussed the latter on
the List.)"  If that's the case, then I don't think Ojibwe/Ottawa could be a possible source of the loan. The Anishinaabe dialects have ost the final animate -a of Proto-Algonquian in most words. I'm not positive about whether Miami-Illinois or Fox retain them, but I have this vague recollection that at least Miami-Illinois did. 
 
The source has to be Illinois Algonquian because of the initial vowel.  In Ojibwe and other languages such ethnonyms are marked with the prefix (short) -o.  This only becomes a- in Illinois if I understood Goddard and Costa correctly.  
 
Thanks for the kind words about the entries in Bright's book.  I was the author of the Dhegiha place names part.  Discussion of the Akansea question is sort of split between the Arkansas and Kansas entries, I'm afraid. 
 
My own feeling is that all 5 Dhegiha-speaking tribes were in the Ohio Valley and probably never in the upper Midwest until the Omahas and Poncas moved North.  This would have been between about the 7th and 12th centuries A.D. at least.  I tried to show this in my article in Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Prehistory, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize. Edited by John E. Staller, Robert H. Tykot, Bruce F. Benz. Published by Elsevier, San Diego, N.Y. 2006.   The paper shows a definite dissociation of Dhegiha from Chiwere and Dakota at a fairly early date.
 
Bob Rankin