Barrington
Among the handful of settlers who migrated to far Northwest Cook County, a sizable group was from Great Barrington, Mass. They named Barrington Township in 1840 and the village in 1867.

Buffalo Grove
The name stems from an 1840s buffalo herd. "The legend is that Buffalo Grove got its name because there was a group of buffalo that used to like to eat grass around a grove of trees," said Debbie Fandrei of the Buffalo Grove Historical Society. As far back as the maps go, the village was named Buffalo Grove.

Des Plaines
Before Des Plaines became Des Plaines it was the town of Rand, named for the early settler Socrates Rand. But the area was located along the Des Plaines River, which was mapped by cartographers several hundred years before. Apparently, it was easier to make a connection with the river and the town's name changed when it was incorporated in the 1800s.

Elk Grove Village
It was very early people - a Potawatomi Indian tribe - who gave Elk Grove its name in 1818. They were stating the obvious, said historian Mary McCarthy; there were plenty of elk in the area. The settlement wasn't established as Elk Grove until 1834. "I've been told that back in that time, they had so many different dialects," said McCarthy. "The only thing that they could understand among each other was animal names."

Long Grove
After a look at old village maps, it isn't hard to find out that this name came from a long grove of trees in the area. But the earliest German settlers used Mutterscholz to describe area at first. The village was officially designated Long Grove in the 1840s because the grove "sort of set the area apart from surrounding areas that contained a lot of prairies and buffalo groves," said Susan Klein of the Long Grove Historical Museum. The grove is still there - a group of hardwoods running from Deer Grove diagonally over to Riverwoods.

Palatine
It was the state of New York, not one of the Seven Hills of Rome, that gave Palatine its name. Harrison Cook came from Palatine Bridge, N.Y. And Cook, whose surname was originally Koch, was a founding father in the area in the mid-1800s. But the name almost slipped through his fingers: When residents gathered to vote on a name, "Yankton" - thought to be derived from the Yankees of New York - was an equally popular choice. "Palatine only won by one vote," said Marilyn Pedersen of Palatine's historical society.

Rolling Meadows
The land southwest of Wilke Road and Euclid Avenue was known only as the southeast corner of Palatine Township until Kimball Hill planned the subdivision and chose a new name in 1951. "Believe it or not, the land was really rolling," said Tom Waldron, a Rolling Meadows resident and former alderman. "In order to build homes cheaper, (Hill) leveled it all out."

Streamwood
When a group of Indiana settlers moved west into Illinois, they called the place Hoosier Grove. And so it was until years later when two new subdivisions were built and named Streamwood and Woodland Heights. "In the 1950s, they picked names that were marketable and appealing," said Nancy Gher, the manager and curator of Hoosier Grove Museum. In 1957, the village ditched Hoosier Grove and incorporated as Streamwood, taking its name from the subdivision. "The city could have easily become Woodland Heights," Gher said.

Wheeling
One of the oldest Northwest suburbs, Wheeling was likely named for Wheeling, W. Va., by settlers who came farther west, historians surmise. The town was honored by the U.S. Navy, which commissioned the USS Wheeling in the 1940s. The vessel was one of eight Military Sea Transportation Service special project ships capable of tracking missiles.

-Erin Holmes

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