EarhornJones t1_iu5skl8 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 7:32 PM

The origin of the name of the city of Des Moines is lost to history. One possibly apocryphal story is that French traders often named landmarks after the people living near them. When trading with one tribe, the French asked the name of another tribe living by a nearby river.

The first tribe, wanting to discourage the French from taking their trade goods to another tribe, called them something like "those shitfaces over there".

The French, not realizing the meaning, recorded the name of the tribe, and thus the river, and then the city as "Des Moines".

marmorset OP t1_iu6cmqo wrote on October 28, 2022 at 9:54 PM

I'm pretty sure it means A Whale's Vagina.

Pippin1505 t1_iu68vqz wrote on October 28, 2022 at 9:26 PM

But I don’t see the link ?

"des moines" is just French for "of the monks" It could be a corruption of "demons" but it’s an unlikely name for a city

EarhornJones t1_iu69p37 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 9:32 PM

"The monks" is a false etymology. The French trappers didn't name it after monks. They named it after a native word, that was later shortened/corrupted to "Des Moines".

From Wikipedia: William Bright writes that Moines was an abbreviation used by the French for Moingouena or Moingona, an Algonquian subgroup of the Illinois people. The Native American term was /mooyiinkweena/, a derogatory name applied to the Moingouena by the Peoria people, a closely related subgroup. The meaning of the native word, according to an early French writer, is visage plein d'ordure, or in plain English, "shit-face", from mooy-, "shit", -iinkwee, "face", and -na, "indefinite actor".[7]

Hypersky75 t1_iu6axd9 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 9:42 PM

As a french speaker I had no idea, always thought of the literal sense in French, "of the monks" or just "some monks".

Shit faces. I like it. Faces de merde. 😅

Phu_Bai_PX t1_iu73yt3 wrote on October 29, 2022 at 1:33 AM

Looks like the folks of Moingona, Iowa may want to consider renaming their town.

proggR t1_iu6rd3w wrote on October 28, 2022 at 11:51 PM

So what you're saying is, whenever someone is looking to party hard, they should say they want to get mooyiinkweena'd? lol

Drunk history should make a spin off covering language. I'd watch that lol

VeryJoyfulHeart59 t1_iu8wzmv wrote on October 29, 2022 at 1:59 PM

Having lived in the Des Moines area for 7 years, I can attest that very few, if any of the locals are aware of this. However, if they did, they would be quite proud, as Iowans seem to be proud and arrogant regarding any negative attribute of Iowa and Iowans.