The story
The origin of the name is uncertain, with local lore ascribing it to a Native American trader named Allan Makee and other sources suggesting that it derives from an Algonquian language term for the Thunder clan of the Sac/Fox people; compare Fox nenemehkiwa (“thunder”) and Ojibwe animikii (“thunderer”) (alternation of l and n is common in Algonquian languages and in words borrowed into or from them).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.