not Michigan but, Chicago translates roughly as " smelly water" from a Native American tribe that lived around the area.
Chicago The name “Chicago” derives from a word in the language spoken by the
Miami and
Illinois peoples meaning “striped skunk, ” a word they also applied to the wild leek (known to later botanists as
Allium tricoccum). This became the Indian name for the
Chicago River, in recognition of the presence of wild leeks in the watershed. When early
French explorers began adopting the word, with a variety of spellings, in the late seventeenth century, it came to refer to the site at the mouth of the Chicago River.
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