In the book, "The Clevengers of Macoupin County, Illinois" the author, Marjorie (De Meyer) Clevenger writes about the Origin of the name Macoupin: "The word Macoupin comes originally from a French word, 'macopine' which attempted to duplicate the sound of an Indian word for a favorite Illinois Indian food plant...etc. "that the name Macoupin is of Indian origin and is abrreviated from Macoupina which signified in their tongue, white potato." She goes on to give her thoughts of the origin of the name Macoupin: "I think that originally the Macoupin was not this plant. .. An early French map by Franquelin, dated 1684, shows the Illinois River called Riviere Illinois ou Riviere des Macopins." "Later maps hsow the name Macopine given to what is probably Spoon River, and finally, a French map made in 1744 shows for the first time our creek named Riviere des Macopines. These maps are in the collection compiled by Tucker for the Illinois State Museum. At any rate, I sure am glad to know how to properly pronounce the name of Macoupin...so, if I stumble over it and call it Magoopin or Macoopin I'll be correct either way because I have ancesters from Macoupin County from the northern townships as well as the southern townships. Just wish I could link them to earlier families before they arrived in Illinois before it was Macoupin County. Linda Arnold Researching LAIR, CRAYS and TOSH Families of Macoupin County. lara93@gateway.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ann McReynolds" <ARMcR@mcreynoldsappraisal.com> To: <ILMACOUP-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, December 17, 1999 10:16 AM Subject: [ILMACOUP-L] Mah-goo-pan? > I've been following this dialogue off and on with some interest, and wonder if anyone knows WHO > Macoupin was? Looks like it could have been French, rather than Celtic (as in McCoupin). If > so.....it likely was originally pronounced Mah-coo-pan' (with just the beginning sound of the "N"). > AND, it might even originally had a hard "G" in the middle, which was lost entirely to many of the > non-French speakers. We have a bunch of French names here in St. Louis that have been "Germanized" > into the strangest sounds you can imagine. However, nothing can top Courtois Creek, about 100 miles > SW of St. Louis, which is now called "Coat'-a-way" by everyone. It's a real stretch to get from > Coor-twah' to Coat'-a-way, but it happened! > Ann McReynolds, > St. Louis > > > ==== ILMACOUP Mailing List ==== > Check out Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763-1900: > http://www2.sos.state.il.us/cgi-bin/marriage > >