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Borrowed from KoyukonDeenaalee(“the tall one; the high one; the great one”) (/dinæli/, variously rendered Dinale or Denali), from -naał-(“be long, tall”).[1]
Mount McKinley was known to Russians as Bulshaia and to the natives of Cook Inlet as Traleyka. Both names signify 'high' or 'big mountain.' The natives of the interior know it as Denali.
Usage notes
During Russian ownership of Alaska, the name of the mountain was Больша́я Гора́(Bolʹšája Gorá, “big mountain”), the literal translation of Denali.[2] It was briefly called Densmore's Mountain in the late 1880s and early 1890s after Frank Densmore, first European to reach its base.[3] In 1896, W. A Dickey, a gold prospector named it McKinley after then-presidential candidate William McKinley, writing "that fact was the first news we received on our way out of that wonderful wilderness"; the United States formalized the name Mount McKinley in 1917, but many Alaskans continued to refer to it as Denali,[4] the Alaskan board on geographic names made Denali official for state use in 1975,[5] and President Obama restored that name in August 2015.[6]
