The Short Comings!

You guessed it! It is a Buffalo. Fortunately or unfortunately, I live in a place called Buffalo in New York. As soon as I made the grand announcement that I am going to Buffalo for my MS, I received a round of giggles in my class. My friends made it a point to refer to me as the future Buffalo in canteen, in corridors and everywhere.. It never used to bother me until recently when I called my mother. While talking on weather (A hot sun is a rarity during winter), she mentioned that she saw a buffalo on the road yesterday and suddenly thought of me. Hence started my search for the root cause of the name of my city..

There are many theories surrounding the name including we Indians (or may be the Red Indians) named the place 'Do-sh-wa' (How in the world did this become buffalo?) and people saw a lot of buffaloes in the creeks here and named the city as Buffalo. But I would like to stick by the French theory.. According to this theory, it seems the French were walking through woods and happened upon the Niagara river (I live an hour from Niagara and have been bored by its charm after visiting it umpteen times). They were charmed to greatness by the beauty of Niagara and hence decided to name the river as 'beau fleuve' meaning 'beautiful river'. And, it was shortened here and there over the decades and became Buffalo, the city that has become home to me!