Jacques Michaud, age 11, of St. Catherine's, Ontario, Canada, for his question:

How did the Great Lakes yet their names?

Lake Superior lives up to its name because of its enormous size. The other four were named by the French and other early settlers with words borrowed from local Indians. The original names were remodeled to make them spellable and pronounceable and some were slightly modified in the French English translation. We cannot be precise about their original meanings because these are rooted in Indian languages.

The second largest lake was named for the huron Indians who hunted and grew crops in the region. The Indian name for the third largest lake was Michi gums. and most likely meant the Big Water. We call it Lake Michigan. The Iroquois invented the almost unpronounceable word Erieehronons, meaning the Panther People, to name a neighboring tribe. It was streamlined and used to name Lake Erie. The Iroquois also named Lake Ontario, though language experts are not sure what they meant to call it. The original name may have meant the High Rocks or the Lake Shore. But we prefer to think they meant to call it The Beautiful Lake.