Lake Erie Meaning

​This name is always mentioned by the early French writers as meaning "cat"; Lac du Chat means "Lake of the Cat." ... Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and is especially vulnerable to fluctuating water levels.

For example, although we may think Lake Erie possessed that name from its very beginning, we would be quite mistaken. On an early map (Sanson Map, 1650), the name of the Great Lake just east of the Detroit River appears as Lac Du Chat.
An English translation of this French name of course is Lake of the Cat. This name refers to a native clan of the Iroquois tribe that had settled upon its shores. The native name for their tribe was Erikons, which meant “Cat People”. In translation from the native dialect to the French language the name Erikon gradually became to be pronounced as Erie and, of course, that name has stuck ever since.

NAME: The greater part of Lake Erie’s southern shore was at one time occupied by a nation known to the Iroquois League as the “Erielhonan,” or the “long-tails,” a tribe of Indians from which the lake derived its name. This name is always mentioned by the early French writers as meaning “cat;” Lac du Chat means “Lake of the Cat.” Many attribute this reference to the wild cat or panther.