Written by Mac Morey on January 27, 2021 The lovely state Wyoming that we are privileged enough to call home became the 44th state in 1890, but where did the Cowboy State’s name actually originate? There are a few answers to this question. According to the Wyoming Secretary of State, “the name Wyoming is a contraction of the Native American word mecheweamiing (“at the big plains”), and was first used by the Delaware people as a name for the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania.” Other sources would say it is based on the Algonquin Indian word that means “large prairie place” or the Munsee word meaning “at the big river flat.”