Name Origin
"Oconee" is the Anglicized form of the Itsati (Hitchiti-Creek) word Okvni, which means "born from water" or "living on water." This branch of the Creek was historically also referred to as the Ocute, the name used by the Spanish chroniclers of the Hernando de Soto Expedition in 1540, who transliterated the Hitchiti word Okvte. Okvte means "Water People." According to Oconee-Creek tradition, their original homeland was in the Okefenokee Swamp of southeastern Georgia. A branch of the Oconee still lived in this vast expanse of wetlands during the 1600s, when it was nominally under the domain of Spain. Most of the Oconee Creek's traditional territory and towns were in present-day northeastern Georgia, northwestern South Carolina and in the Great Smoky Mountains. Colonists adopted the name of the local people for the Oconaluftee River in the Great Smoky Mountains; in the Hitchiti language, Oconaluftee means "separated Oconee people."
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