The story
- Algonquian · derived from
- English todaychinquapin
Like its cognate / alternative form chinkapin, chinquapin is an alteration of chechinquamin / chincomen (the form found in early records), from an Algonquian language (sometimes said specifically to be from Powhatan). The final element is *mini (“berry, fruit”). Hewitt suggested that the first element was a word meaning "large, great" cognate to xinkw- (“big, large, great”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.