Date
Meaning & History
This was what explorer, Captain William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, nicknamed the son of Sacagawea. The child's real name was Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. Many sources say that Pomp was a Shoshone name given to him by Sacagawea, meaning anything from 'first born', 'first son', 'leader', 'unborn', and 'little son', yet none of the Shoshone words for those meanings match anything like Pomp. It's likely the name was given by Clark and not Sacagawea and that it is not a Shoshone name. The origin of the nickname, whether it's derived from the English word "pomp", or is a diminutive of a name containing the element -pomp-, is unknown.Pompeys Pillar on the Yellowstone River in Montana and the community of Charbonneau, Oregon are named after him.