In the famous American poem The Song of Hiawatha, Minnehaha is the wife of the Native American hero Hiawatha. English readers have long been told her name means “laughing water.” Though actually, the name was taken from Minnehaha Falls, in what is now Minneapolis, and it comes from Dakota mníȟaȟa, a waterfall or rapids — water that curls and breaks — not simply a woman laughing. The “laughing water” story is how English speakers liked to hear it, more than a word-for-word Dakota meaning. So she is a character in a poem, built on a real place-name.