list of nebraska county name etymologies

This is a list of Nebraska county name etymologies. When many counties were formed, the bills forming the counties did not state the honoree's full name; thus several counties' namesakes are known by only last names. (Brown, Deuel, Dixon, and possibly Harlan to be exact.)

Counties, alphabetical by first letter

A

Adams County, Nebraska: Adams is named for John Adams, the second president of the United States.
Antelope County, Nebraska: Antelope is named for the pronghorn antelope in the area.
Arthur County, Nebraska: Arthur is named for Chester Alan Arthur, the twenty-first president of the United States.

B

Banner County, Nebraska: Banner is named for the hope of the early settlers to make the county the "banner county" of the state.
Blaine County, Nebraska: Blaine is named for James Gillespie Blaine, the United States Secretary of State and presidential candidate.
Boone County, Nebraska: Boone is named for Daniel Boone, the famous Kentucky frontiersman.
Box Butte County, Nebraska: Box Butte is named for a large box-shaped butte located approximately six miles north of Alliance, Nebraska, the county seat.
Boyd County, Nebraska: Boyd is named for James E. Boyd, the eighth governor of Nebraska.
Brown County, Nebraska: Brown is named for any two of five members of the state legislature named Brown at the time of the county's formation (see above for explanation).
Buffalo County, Nebraska: Buffalo is named for the American Bison which once roamed the present county.
Burt County, Nebraska: Burt is named for Francis Burt, the first territorial governor of Nebraska who died after two days in office.
Butler County, Nebraska: Butler is named for either David Butler, the first governor of Nebraska; or William Orlando Butler, the Kentucky statesman who declined an appointment to become the first territorial governor of Nebraska.

C

Cass County, Nebraska: Cass is named for Lewis Cass, the American statesman and senator from Michigan.
Cedar County, Nebraska: Cedar is named for the many juniper trees (locally mis-identified as cedars) in the area.
Chase County, Nebraska: Chase is named for Champion S. Chase, a mayor of Omaha, Nebraska who served as Nebraska's first attorney general.
Cherry County, Nebraska: Cherry is named for Samuel A. Cherry, a lieutenant in the U.S. Fifth Cavalry who two years before the formation of the county had been murdered north of Fort Niobrara.
Cheyenne County, Nebraska: Cheyenne is named for the Cheyenne Native American tribe.
Clay County, Nebraska: Clay is named for Henry Clay, the Kentucky statesman and presidential candidate.
Colfax County, Nebraska: Colfax is named for Schuyler Colfax, the seventeenth vice president of the United States.
Cuming County, Nebraska: Cuming is named for Thomas B. Cuming, the acting governor of the Nebraska Territory when the county was formed.
Custer County, Nebraska: Custer is named for George Armstrong Custer, the U. S. Army general famous for his death at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

D

Dakota County, Nebraska: Dakota is named for the Dakota branch of the Sioux Native American tribe.
Dawes County, Nebraska: Dawes is named for James W. Dawes, the sixth governor of Nebraska.
Dawson County, Nebraska: Dawson is named for Jacob Dawson, who was the first postmaster in the settlement of Lancaster, which is present-day Lincoln, Nebraska, the state capital.
Deuel County, Nebraska: Deuel is named for a railroad official whose name has since been lost (see above for explanation).
Dixon County, Nebraska: Dixon is named for a pioneer whose name has since been lost. (See above for explanation.)
Dodge County, Nebraska: Dodge is named for Augustus Caesar Dodge, an United States senator from Iowa who was a supporter of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Douglas County, Nebraska: Douglas is named for Stephen Arnold Douglas, the American statesman, U. S. senator, and presidential candidate.
Dundy County, Nebraska: Dundy is named for Elmer Dundy, an U.S. Circuit Court judge from Nebraska.

F

Fillmore County, Nebraska: Fillmore is named for Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth president of the United States.
Franklin County, Nebraska: Franklin is named for Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father, printer, scientist, and diplomat.
Frontier County, Nebraska: Frontier is named for the fact that it was located in what was referred to at that time as part of the Nebraska frontier.
Furnas County, Nebraska: Furnas is named for Robert Wilkinson Furnas, the third governor of Nebraska.

G

Gage County, Nebraska: Gage is named for William D. Gage, a Methodist minister who served as chaplain of the state legislature at the time the county was established.
Garden County, Nebraska: Garden is named for the hopes of two real estate agents and citizens of the county seat, Oshkosh, Nebraska, that the county would be the "garden spot of the west".
Garfield County, Nebraska: Garfield is named for James Abram Garfield, the twentieth president of the United States.
Gosper County, Nebraska: Gosper is named for John J. Gosper, the secretary of state for Nebraska at the time of the county's formation.
Grant County, Nebraska: Grant is named for Ulysses Simpson Grant, the eighteenth president of the United States and American Civil War general.
Greeley County, Nebraska: Greeley is named for Horace Greeley, the pioneering American journalist.

H

Hall County, Nebraska: Hall is named for Augustus Hall, the chief justice of the Territorial Supreme Court at the time the county was created.
Hamilton County, Nebraska: Hamilton is named for Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.
Harlan County, Nebraska: Harlan is named for either James Harlan, who was the United States Secretary of the Interior in 1865 and 1866; or a revenue collector by the name of Harlan who once lived near Republican City, Nebraska.
Hayes County, Nebraska: Hayes is named for Rutherford Birchard Hayes, the nineteenth president of the United States.
Hitchcock County, Nebraska: Hitchcock is named for Phineas Warren Hitchcock, an U.S. Senator from Nebraska.
Holt County, Nebraska: Holt is named for Joseph Holt, a U.S. Postmaster General and U.S. Secretary of War under James Buchanan.
Hooker County, Nebraska: Hooker is named for Joseph Hooker, an American Civil War general.
Howard County, Nebraska: Howard is named for Oliver Otis Howard, an American Civil War general.

J

Jefferson County, Nebraska: Jefferson is named for Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States.
Johnson County, Nebraska: Johnson is named for Richard Mentor Johnson, the ninth vice president of the United States.

K

Kearney County, Nebraska: Kearney is named for Fort Kearny. When the county was created the fort's name was misspelled.
Keith County, Nebraska: Keith is named for M. C. Keith, who owned one of the largest ranches in western Nebraska at the time.
Keya Paha County, Nebraska: Keya Paha is named for the Dakota words K-ya Pa-h Wa-kp, which, translated, mean turtle hill river.
Kimball County, Nebraska: Kimball is named for Thomas L. Kimball, a official of the Union Pacific Railroad.
Knox County, Nebraska: Knox is named for Henry Knox, the first United States Secretary of War.

L

Lancaster County, Nebraska: Lancaster is named for the cities of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Lancaster, England.
Lincoln County, Nebraska: Lincoln is named for Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States.
Logan County, Nebraska: Logan is named for John Alexander Logan, a general in the American Civil War.
Loup County, Nebraska: Loup is named for the Loup River.

M

Madison County, Nebraska: Madison is named for either James Madison, the fourth president of the United States; or, more likely, Madison, Wisconsin, where most of the new county's settlers were from.
McPherson County, Nebraska: McPherson is named for James Birdseye McPherson, a general in the American Civil War.
Merrick County, Nebraska: Merrick is named for Elvira Merrick, wife of Henry W. DePuy, a territorial legislator.
Morrill County, Nebraska: Morrill is named for Charles H. Morrill, a president of the Lincoln Land Company.

N

Nance County, Nebraska: Nance is named for Albinus Nance, the fifth governor of Nebraska.
Nemaha County, Nebraska: Nemaha is named for Nimaha, the Oto name meaning miry water for a stream which crossed the county and emptied into the Missouri River.
Nuckolls County, Nebraska: Nuckolls is named for Lafayette Nuckolls, a member of the first Nebraska territorial legislature; and his brother, Stephen Nuckolls, a pioneer Nebraska settler, businessman and banker.

O

Otoe County, Nebraska: Otoe is named for the Oto (also Otoe) Native American tribe.

P

Pawnee County, Nebraska: Pawnee is named for the Pawnee Native American tribe.
Perkins County, Nebraska: Perkins is named for either Charles E. Perkins, a president of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad; or Joseph Perkins, a former resident of Grant, Nebraska.
Phelps County, Nebraska: Phelps is named for William Phelps, a riverboat captain on the Mississippi River who is alleged to have settled in the area.
Pierce County, Nebraska: Pierce is named for Franklin Pierce, the fourteenth president of the United States.
Platte County, Nebraska: Platte is named for the Platte River.
Polk County, Nebraska: Polk is named for James Knox Polk, the eleventh president of the United States.

R

Red Willow County, Nebraska: Red Willow is named for Red Willow Creek, which runs through the area.
Richardson County, Nebraska: Richardson is named for William A. Richardson, a governor of the Nebraska Territory.
Rock County, Nebraska: Rock is named for either Rock Creek, which flows in the county; or the rocky condition of the soil in the area.