Nakota is a modern name influenced by Dakota-style sounds and is usually treated as a contemporary invented form.
Nakota (also spelled Nakoda or Nakona) is the name by which one of the three main divisions of the Sioux Nation refers to itself. The word means "the allies" or "the friends" in the Siouan language family — a self-designation of kinship and solidarity that distinguishes the Nakota from the closely related Dakota ("allies" in the eastern dialect) and Lakota ("allies" in the western dialect) peoples. The Nakota traditionally inhabited the northern Great Plains, from present-day Saskatchewan and Manitoba through Montana and the Dakotas, living as skilled equestrian hunters of the buffalo.
The Nakota people — including the Assiniboine and the Stoney nations — maintained a rich ceremonial and oral tradition. They were accomplished traders and warriors, and their name appears in the journals of Lewis and Clark and in the accounts of early fur traders as a powerful presence on the plains. The language, distinct enough from Dakota and Lakota to be considered a separate tongue by many linguists, is spoken today by dwindling numbers and is the subject of revitalization efforts in Canada and the United States.
As a given name, Nakota began appearing in American birth records in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, often chosen by non-Indigenous parents attracted to its strong, open sound and its association with the natural landscapes of the northern plains. It sits alongside Dakota and Cheyenne as place-and-people names that have crossed into personal naming culture. For Indigenous families, it carries ancestral weight and pride. For others, it is a name of genuine geographic and cultural beauty — though it comes with the responsibility of understanding the living people and history it represents.