Kateri

Kateri developed from a Mohawk pronunciation of Katherine. It is closely associated with Kateri Tekakwitha, the seventeenth-century Mohawk saint who adopted the name at baptism. The connection is a particular history of adapting a Christian name into another language, rather than evidence that Kateri is a separate Mohawk word meaning pure.

The pure interpretation belongs to Katherine's long association with the Greek word katharos. The name's earliest derivation remains debated. Kateri therefore carries both the inherited Katherine family and the distinct history of Tekakwitha, whose life gives this form a cultural and religious association of its own.