Bigfoot Names by State: Skunk Ape, Grassman, Momo and More

Bigfoot may be the household name, but America's hairy giant goes by a lot of aliases. Drive a few hundred miles in almost any direction and you'll hear a new one, usually with a great story attached.

Here's our guide to the regional names you'll hear around the country. We've stuck to names with solid documentation. Where a name comes from Native tradition, we've noted that respectfully and kept to what published sources actually say.

Bigfoot. The everyday American name. It dates to a 1958 newspaper story from Humboldt County, California. (Read the story.)

Sasquatch. The older name, first published in 1929 by J.W. Burns in British Columbia, from the Halq'emeylem word sasq'ets ("hairy man"). It's the standard term in Canada and common throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Wikipedia also lists generic alternatives you'll hear in research circles: wood ape, bushman, treeman and wildman. Wikipedia notes that some researchers prefer "wood ape" precisely because it sounds less mythical than Bigfoot.

The nickname itself is older than the creature. A Wyandot chief, a Potawatomi chief, a Lakota leader, a Texas Ranger and at least two giant grizzly bears were all called "Big Foot" in the 1800s and early 1900s. We tell that story, and the 1958 logging-road tale that made the name famous, in where the name Bigfoot came from.

Local names tend to cluster where reports cluster. Here's how many mapped reports some of the states in this guide have in the public BFRO dataset behind our sightings map:

Washington leads the country by a wide margin. Louisiana's famous swamp monster comes from a state with comparatively few mapped reports, a reminder that a strong local legend doesn't depend on report counts.

Florida: Skunk Ape. Shorter and redder than its northern cousin, and famous for its smell. Florida also has the local Bardin Booger of Putnam County. (Full Skunk Ape guide)

Arkansas: Fouke Monster. Also called the Boggy Creek Monster, this one made the leap to the big screen in the 1972 film The Legend of Boggy Creek. Before the 1971 reports that made it famous, it was sometimes known locally as the "Jonesville Monster." (Upcoming: Fouke Monster post.)

Louisiana: Honey Island Swamp Monster. Said to live in the Honey Island Swamp in St. Tammany Parish. It became widely known after reports by Harlan Ford beginning in 1963. (Our upcoming Honey Island post arrives in May.)

Texas: Lake Worth Monster. In 1969, people reported a hairy, scaly "goat-man" near Lake Worth, at what is now the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge. It's often considered a likely prank, but it's become a beloved local legend.

Mississippi: the Natchez accounts. One of the oldest written references in the South comes from a Jesuit priest living with the Natchez in 1721, who reported stories of hairy creatures in the forest that screamed loudly and stole livestock.

Ohio: Grassman. Ohio's homegrown Bigfoot, closely linked to the 1978 Minerva Monster reports in Stark County. (Upcoming: Grassman post.)

Michigan: Dewey Lake Monster. Also called the Sister Lakes Sasquatch, it was reported near Dewey Lake and Sister Lakes, by Dowagiac, in June 1964. Witnesses described something hairy, about 10 feet tall and 500 pounds, with glowing eyes. Police found nothing, but monster hunters poured in, local businesses sold "monster burgers" and "monster hunting kits," and Chicago papers dubbed Sister Lakes "Monster Town USA." Within a week, the South Bend Tribune reported that "nobody seems frightened anymore." In 2016, the annual Dewey Lake Boat Parade celebrated the legend.

Missouri: Momo. Short for "Missouri Monster." Momo made headlines in July 1972 in the town of Louisiana, Missouri. It's remembered for its supposed "pumpkin-shaped head" and strong smell. (Upcoming: Momo post.)

Virginia: Woodbooger. The city of Norton in southwest Virginia has fully embraced the Woodbooger, with a statue, a sanctuary resolution and its own festival. The festival is held in the fall; check our festivals page for this year's dates. (Upcoming: Woodbooger post.)

North Carolina and Tennessee: Tsul 'Kalu. Cherokee folklore includes tales of the Tsul 'Kalu, described as giants of the Appalachian Mountains. Wikipedia notes the figure is sometimes associated with Bigfoot. In Cherokee mythology, Tsul 'Kalu, also called Judaculla, is the great lord of the hunt, often invoked in hunting rites. It's a traditional story with its own meaning, not simply another name for Bigfoot.

Arizona: Mogollon Monster. Said to roam the Mogollon Rim of central and eastern Arizona, and described as over 7 feet tall. (Upcoming: Mogollon Monster post.)

California: "Hairy Man." On the Tule River Indian Reservation, Yokuts petroglyphs at a site called Painted Rock include a large figure called "Hairy Man" (Mayak Datat). Author Kathy Moskowitz Strain has written that it depicts a Bigfoot family and estimated the paintings at about 1,000 years old.

Washington: Ts'emekwes. Members of the Lummi Nation tell stories of creatures called Ts'emekwes. Different family accounts vary in the details, such as what the creatures eat and what they do. Some regional versions tell of more threatening beings, the stiyaha or kwi-kwiyai, a nocturnal race whose names children were warned not to say.

Pacific Northwest: Skookum. Skookum is a Chinook Jargon word long used in British Columbia, the Yukon and the Pacific Northwest. It means strong, powerful or monstrous. The word turns up in Bigfoot circles in the Skookum cast, a body impression taken in 2000 in Washington's Gifford Pinchot National Forest that some believe was left by a Bigfoot sitting in the mud.

Pacific Northwest: Tsonoqua / Dzunukwa. In Kwakwaka'wakw tradition, Dzunukwa is a giant "wild woman of the woods," well known from carved masks. Some writers have linked her to the Sasquatch legend. Retired University of Arizona anthropologist John A. McClelland has described Tsonoqua as a giant, hair-covered ogre who steals children and food, and called her "likely the origin of the Sasquatch or Bigfoot legend."

Alaska: Nantinaq. The Alutiiq people of the Kenai Peninsula tell of the Nantinaq, a Bigfoot-like creature.

New York and the Northeast: Stone Giant. Iroquois tradition tells of a hair-covered giant with rock-hard skin, the Ot ne yar heh or "Stone Giant," also called the Genoskwa.

Himalayas: Yeti. Not a North American creature at all, but the most famous cousin of the bunch, also known as the Abominable Snowman. (Bigfoot vs Sasquatch vs Yeti)

Many Indigenous nations have traditional stories about hairy giants or wild people of the woods. Those stories belong to living cultures and carry their own meanings, often very different from the modern idea of "Bigfoot." Here we've only summarized what published sources say, and we'd always point you to tribal cultural centers and Indigenous authors to learn more. We'll go deeper in our upcoming post on Sasquatch in Native American legends.

Which name do they use where you live? Explore our Bigfoot Country state pages to see local legends, festivals and mapped BFRO reports for your state. And if your town has a Bigfoot nickname we missed, we'd love to hear about it. Bonus points if it comes with a festival and a funnel cake.