Cheyanne is a spelling variant of Cheyenne, taken from the tribal name and later used as a given name.
Cheyanne is a variant spelling of Cheyenne, the name of one of the great Plains nations of North America. The word itself is believed to derive from the Lakota Sioux term Šahíyena, meaning "people who speak a different language" — a reminder that the Cheyenne were known to neighboring Sioux-speaking peoples as linguistic outsiders, speakers of an Algonquian tongue in a Siouan-dominated world. The Cheyenne people themselves use the name Tsêhéstâhese or Só'taeo'o to refer to their nation, and their history encompasses both the rich traditions of the northern and southern Plains and the devastating displacement of the nineteenth century, including the tragedy of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.
As a given name, Cheyenne entered American usage in the twentieth century, carrying the romance of the Western frontier. Cheyenne, Wyoming — the state capital, nicknamed "Magic City of the Plains" — lent the name geographic grandeur. The name appeared in country music, Western novels, and the 1955 television series Cheyenne starring Clint Walker, which ran for eight seasons and brought the name into American living rooms for nearly a decade.
The alternate spellings Cheyanne and Cheyann emerged as American parents sought to personalize the name while preserving its sound. Cheyanne peaked in popularity in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, part of a broader fashion for place-names and Native American-influenced names. Its usage has since softened, but Cheyanne retains an association with open landscapes, independence, and a distinctly American sense of wide possibility — a name that seems to belong to someone who prefers the horizon to the enclosed.