Most of the great urban centers of the ancient world are known by names that were given to them by later people — sometimes by the people who succeeded the original builders, sometimes by archaeologists and scholars from entirely different cultural traditions.

The name Cahokia comes from a Illiniwek group called the Cahokia, who were living in the area when French colonizers arrived in the seventeenth century.

The Cahokia Illinois had no direct connection to the much earlier Mississippian builders of the city.

They were later arrivals in a landscape already reshaped by the construction and abandonment of an earlier civilization.

The Mississippian people of the city may have had a name for it that reflected its religious significance, its political importance, or its geographic position.

They may have had multiple names used by different communities or in different contexts.