List of U.S. Place Names of French Origin - Minnesota

Minnesota

  • Albertville, named after a city in France
  • Argyle (from the French Argile, "clay") (or from Argyll in Scotland?)
  • Audubon
  • Baudette
  • Belle Plaine
  • Belle Prairie Township
  • Bois de Sioux River ("woods of the Sioux")
  • Bois Forte Indian Reservation ("hard wood")
  • Brule River (from the Ojibwe name Wiskode-zibi "half-burned wood river", which was translated directly into French as Bois BrulĂ©. Half of the river disappears into a pothole in the Judge C. R. Magney State Park).
  • Cloquet
  • Coteau des Prairies ("slope of the prairies")
  • Delano (after a scion of the famous Delano Family, originally Huguenots named "De Lannoye")
  • Detroit Lakes ("narrows lake")
  • Duluth (named after Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut)
  • Faribault
  • Faribault County, named for Jean-Baptiste Faribault, French-Canadian trader
  • Fond du Lac Indian Reservation ("bottom of the lake")
  • Frontenac State Park
  • Frontier ("Border" refers to its position on the Minnesota/Ontario border)
  • Glese (From the French "glaise" or clay)
  • Grand Marais ("Big Marsh"; some speculate "Big Harbor" in founders' accent)
  • Hennepin County (named in honor of the 17th-century French explorer Father Louis Hennepin)
  • Huot, Minnesota named after French-Canadian settler Louis Huot
  • La Porte (The Door)
  • La Prairie
  • Lac qui Parle ("lake that speaks")
  • Lac Vieux Desert ("lake of the old clearing")
  • Lake Traverse
  • Le Sueur (named for Pierre-Charles Le Sueur)
  • Mille Lacs County
  • Mille Lacs Lake ("one thousand lakes")
  • Nicollet County
  • Pelland
  • Pomme de Terre ("potato")
  • Roseau ("reed")
  • Renville County, Minnesota
  • Roseville
  • St. Cloud (named after a Paris suburb; St.Cloud is Saint Clodoald, grandson of the Frankish king Clovis I)
  • St. Croix River
  • St. Hilaire
  • St. Louis Park
  • Saint Paul (once known as Pig's Eye Landing after Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant - French: l'Oeil du Cochon, a French-Canadian trader and innkeeper, renamed Saint Paul by French-Canadian pastor Lucien Galtier when he built the first Roman Catholic chapel in the area)
  • Terrebonne ("good land")
  • Traverse County
  • Vadnais Heights, suburb of Saint Paul
  • Lake Vermilion
  • Voyageurs National Park, (named after the French-Canadian explorers - "travellers")

Read more about this topic:  List Of U.S. Place Names Of French Origin