Native American Names

English speaking countries

Oneida is the name of a tribe of New York Indians, one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, who removed to Wisconsin early in the nineteenth century. The name was said to signify "granite people": Onyota'a:ka or Onayotekaono, meaning the People of the Upright Stone, or standing stone.
Tradition tells us that the Indian forefathers in New York State while out hunting and fishing had a red stone given to them by Tammy which was taken from a cleft in the granite rock. From this stone they took the name Oneida which means "the people of the stone."