Entry № 8970 · Hidatsa origin

Sacagawea Sacagawea — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ sah-kah-gah-WEE-ah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Hidatsa
Meaning
"Bird woman (Lewis & Clark Expedition guide)"
Syllables
5
First recorded
Modern (Hidatsa)

A name that means "bird woman (lewis & clark expedition guide)".

Sacagawea (Hidatsa Tsakákawia, "bird woman") was the Lemhi Shoshone woman who, at approximately 16 and carrying her infant son, served as interpreter and guide to the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806) on its journey from the Mandan villages to the Pacific Ocean and back. Her presence and that of her newborn signaled the expedition's peaceful intent to every tribe they encountered — Clark wrote that no party with a woman could be considered a war party. She is depicted on the US Sacagawea dollar coin minted since 2000, and has more statues across the United States than any other woman.

Subject of Anna Lee Waldo's Sacajawea (1979) and many history books.

Bird woman. Sixteen years old with a newborn, she guided Lewis and Clark to the Pacific.

The name in its native script.

Sacagawea
Transliteration
Sacagawea
Pronunciation
/ ˌsæk.ə.dʒəˈwiː.ə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Sacagawea stands.

Sacagawea does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Sacagaweas before her.

Real people
Sacagawea
Shoshone interpreter and guide.
c. 1788 – 1812
In fiction
Sacagawea
Featured on the US Sacagawea dollar.
2000

Names connected to Sacagawea.

The number behind Sacagawea.

7

The Seeker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Sacagawea reduce to 7, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.