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Winona.

A female given name from Dakota, used mainly in the United States.

6 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

name/wɪˈnoʊnə/
  1. A female given name from Dakota, used mainly in the United States.

  2. A community in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

  3. A number of places in the United States. A locality in Coconino County, Arizona.

  4. A number of places in the United States. An unincorporated community in North Bend Township, Starke County, Indiana.

  5. A number of places in the United States. A city in Logan County, Kansas.

  6. A number of places in the United States. An unincorporated community in Elm River Township, Houghton County, Michigan.

  7. A number of places in the United States. A city, the county seat of Winona County, Minnesota.

  8. A number of places in the United States. A city, the county seat of Montgomery County, Mississippi.

  9. A number of places in the United States. A city in Shannon County, Missouri.

  10. A number of places in the United States. An unincorporated community in Butler Township, Columbiana County, Ohio.

  11. A number of places in the United States. An unincorporated community in Putnam County, Tennessee.

  12. A number of places in the United States. An unincorporated community in Scott County, Tennessee.

  13. A number of places in the United States. A city in Smith County, Texas.

  14. A number of places in the United States. An unincorporated community in Fayette County, West Virginia.

  15. A number of places in the United States. An unincorporated community in Taylor County, West Virginia.

Where this word comes from

From Dakota winúŋna (“firstborn daughter”). While not originally used as a personal name by the Dakota, it has been adopted as such by English speakers. John Koontz suggested that the name was a compound of wi- (“female”) + no (“first”) + -na (a diminutive suffix) and thus a reflex of Proto-Siouan *rǫ/*nǫ (“one”). That root is otherwise unattested in the Sioux languages, which use reflexes of *wį(y)ą (“one”) instead, and a more prosaic analysis identifies the first elements of the name with winyan (“woman”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.