The exact derivation of the name "Kenai" is unclear, although it is likely to have come from words of the indigenous Deana'ina Athabaskan Indians. The most likely candidates are "ken'ey" meaning ...
The local Athabaskan Indians reverently called the perpetually snow-covered mountain Denali, "The High One." But in 1896, when the region was still marked as "unexplored" on official maps ...
In doing so, Obama was heeding a long-held request from Alaskans, who since 1975 had been trying to change the formal name of the mountain to Denali, the Koyukon-Athabaskan name for the mountain.