She was named for Washoe county Nevada where she spent her early childhood with the Gardners. Washoe is a Native American word from the Washoe tribe meaning "people."

Reno Gazette-Journal: What to know about 5 ongoing lawsuits filed against Washoe County and the school district

The alleged beating of a student in the North Valleys High School parking lot and an inmate's harassment of a woman months before he killed her are two of the many civil complaints Washoe County is ...

What to know about 5 ongoing lawsuits filed against Washoe County and the school district

Washoe people are the only Great Basin tribe whose language is not Numic, so they are believed to have inhabited the region prior to neighboring tribes. The Kings Beach Complex that emerged about 500 CE around Lake Tahoe and the northern Sierra Nevada are regarded as early Washoe culture.

Tahoe locals for over ten thousand years, the Washoe were the first to call Lake Tahoe “the lake,” and their culture is still going strong.

Washoe, North American Indian people of the Great Basin region who made their home around Lake Tahoe in what is now California, U.S. Their peak numerical strength before contact with settlers may have been 1,500.

An indigenous Native American people, the Washoe originally lived around Lake Tahoe and adjacent areas of the Great Basin. Their tribe name derives from the Washoe word, waashiw (wa šiw), meaning “people from here.”