Saranac Lake has one of those names that seems perfectly matched to its surroundings. It sounds old, peaceful, and distinctly Adirondack, like a word that belongs among quiet waterways, pine-covered mountains, and mist rising from a lake in the early morning. The name is indeed very old, although its original meaning is not quite as simple as some modern retellings suggest.
The Village of Saranac Lake took its name from the nearby Saranac waterways, including the Saranac River and the Upper, Middle, and Lower Saranac Lakes. The name was attached to the landscape long before Saranac Lake developed into the busy lumbering community, health resort, and mountain village that we know today.
Early settlers did not invent the word. Instead, they adopted and gradually Anglicized an Indigenous place-name that had already been associated with the river and surrounding region. Here’s where the name “Saranac” likely originated, and what it means.
The Most Likely Meaning of “Saranac”
The best-supported explanation is that “Saranac” comes from an Abenaki word connected to the staghorn sumac plant. A more complete Abenaki form for the river has been recorded as zalônákégw, generally translated as “staghorn sumac cone river” or “river of the sumac cones.”
Staghorn sumac is common across the Adirondack and Champlain Valley region. It is easily recognized by its fuzzy branches and upright clusters of deep-red fruit, which remain visible into the colder months. To someone moving through the landscape by river, these colorful plants would have made useful and memorable natural markers.
Over time, Indigenous words were often written down by French and English speakers who were unfamiliar with the original language. Spellings varied considerably, especially before place names became standardized.
Historical versions associated with the Saranac River have included forms such as Salanak, Salasance, Sal-a-sa-nac, and Rivière Serindac. Through years of translation, transcription, and everyday use, one of these older forms eventually became the familiar word “Saranac.”
Debate Over the Sumac Name Theory
Interestingly, the sumac explanation is not new. In 1900, linguist J. Dyneley Prince published an article about Indigenous Adirondack place names based partly on information provided by Abenaki speakers, including the well-known Adirondack guide Mitchell Sabattis.
Prince reported that some Abenaki people connected “Saranac” with a word meaning “sumac buds.” At the time, however, he questioned the explanation. Sumac grew in many places, he reasoned, so the description did not seem distinctive enough to identify one particular river.
Later linguistic research gave the sumac interpretation stronger support. Twentieth-century ethnographer and Abenaki language scholar Gordon M. Day documented an Abenaki form that refers more specifically to staghorn sumac cones and the river. Modern Abenaki dictionaries likewise list a form translated as “sumac cone river.” That does not eliminate every uncertainty, and the history of a name this old is rarely perfectly tidy. However, it makes the sumac origin the strongest explanation currently available.
Does “Saranac” Mean “Cluster of Stars”?
Visitors may also encounter a much more poetic definition: that “Saranac” means “cluster of stars” or “river of clustered stars.” It is an appealing image, especially in a part of the Adirondacks where the night sky can be remarkably clear. The reflections of stars on a chain of lakes might even make the translation feel intuitively right.
The difficulty is that this interpretation does not appear to have the same historical or linguistic support as the Abenaki sumac explanation. Some modern tourism articles and local accounts repeat the “clustered stars” definition, occasionally describing it as Haudenosaunee or Iroquoian. However, major reference works have sometimes simply described the meaning of “Saranac” as unknown, and the linguistic sources that provide an identifiable Abenaki word point instead toward staghorn sumac.
That does not necessarily mean the “clustered stars” story was invented deliberately. Place-name meanings are easily altered as they pass from one generation to another. A beautiful translation is especially likely to be remembered and repeated, even when its original source is difficult to locate. For now, it is best regarded as local folklore or an alternative tradition, and not the most firmly documented meaning of the name.
Thought: Too bad that cluster of stars is probably not the most likely meaning of “Saranac”, as many of us drive our Subarus up to Saranac Lake, and the car’s logo is famously the Pleiades star cluster!
Was the Name Abenaki or Mohawk?
This question is complicated because the Adirondacks were used by several Indigenous peoples over many centuries. The region was not an empty wilderness before European settlement. It was part of a much larger network of hunting territories, waterways, travel routes, and cultural relationships.
Both Abenaki and Mohawk people knew and used the Saranac River corridor. A recorded Mohawk name associated with the river and the area near its mouth is Tsi ietsénhtha, translated approximately as “where one draws up water” or “where one scoops water.” The word that eventually became “Saranac,” however, is most convincingly traced to an Abenaki form.
Confusion sometimes arises because older histories loosely labeled almost any Indigenous Adirondack name as “Iroquois” or “Indian,” without carefully distinguishing among languages. Modern scholarship is more cautious. Based on the surviving linguistic evidence, it is safest to describe “Saranac” as a name of probable Abenaki origin.
A Village Named for Water, But Not Quite the Lake You Expect
There is one final geographical twist. Although the community is called Saranac Lake, the body of water in the center of the village is Lake Flower, not one of the three larger Saranac Lakes.
Lake Flower was created after a dam was built across the Saranac River in 1827 to provide power for a sawmill. It was later named for Roswell P. Flower, who served as governor of New York during the 1890s. The Saranac River continues directly through the village and Lake Flower, linking the community to the larger Saranac chain.
The village’s name therefore reflects the entire surrounding system of lakes and rivers rather than one small lake beside its downtown. It is a name inherited from the water itself.
A Name Rooted in the Adirondack Landscape
So, what does “Saranac” mean? The most historically and linguistically supported answer is something close to “staghorn sumac cone river.” The frequently repeated “cluster of stars” translation is certainly more romantic, but it remains difficult to verify and should be presented as an alternative theory rather than a settled definition.
In a way, the sumac meaning is just as fitting. The name does not come from a distant legend or an abstract idea. It appears to come from something people noticed while traveling the river: a familiar native plant, its red fruit standing above the shoreline, marking the route through the northern landscape.
Long before Saranac Lake became known for logging, grand hotels, tuberculosis cure cottages, winter sports, and the arts, its name was already rooted in the natural world. Every time someone says “Saranac,” they may be repeating an old description of the riverbank that has survived, in altered form, for generations.