Cheyenne

History & Origin

Cheyenne comes from the Lakota Sioux word shahiyena, meaning people who speak a foreign tongue or foreign speakers, referring to the Cheyenne Nation — a Plains people who spoke Algonquian rather than Siouan languages. The Cheyenne people occupied the Great Plains and were among the central nations in the conflicts of the 19th-century American West. The name Cheyenne entered American geographic naming through the Wyoming city founded in 1867, and from there it spread into the naming culture as an evocative Western place name.

As a given name, Cheyenne peaked in the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s, particularly popular in states with Western cultural identity. It was used more for girls than boys, though it is genuinely gender-neutral. Country music, Western films, and the American frontier mythology contributed to its appeal. The name has since declined from its peak but maintains steady usage, valued for its connection to Native American history, wide open spaces, and the American West's romantic heritage.