Buffalo’s Name Origin: Theories Summarized and Ranked

The one thing that all name theorists agree on is that Buffalo the city takes its name from Buffalo Creek, now called the Buffalo River. The debate revolves around how the creek was named. We identified seven theories about the origin of Buffalo’s name. We present each theory here on its own page in a Google sheet, with evidence in favor and opposed, and sources. The one true answer may never be established, so we added our own plausibility rankings. You can also view the entire document as a PDF.