Winona

Meanings

1. A female given name from Dakota, used mainly in the United States.
2. A city in Kansas.
3. A city, the county seat of Winona County, Minnesota.
4. A city, the county seat of Montgomery County, Mississippi.
5. A city in Missouri.
6. A town in Texas.

Etymology

From Dakota winúŋna (“firstborn daughter”). While not originally used as a personal name by the Dakota, it has been adopted as such by English speakers. John Koontz suggested that the name was a compound of wi- (“female”) + no (“first”) + -na (a diminutive suffix) and thus a reflex of Proto-Siouan *rǫ/*nǫ (“one”). That root is otherwise unattested in the Sioux languages, which use reflexes of *wį(y)ą (“one”) instead, and a more prosaic analysis identifies the first elements of the name with winyan (“woman”).