The name of the lake is derived from early French explorers who named it for the indigenous people they knew as Huron (Wyandot) inhabiting the region.

The original name for the lake by the Wyandots was ‘whitt-whe-ronn-enn-ahge’, which translated to ‘ever-white’. This was then translated by the French, who re-interpreted the word based on their language, giving us the current name ‘Huron’.

Named after the Huron Indians by the French, it was the first of the Great Lakes to be seen by Europeans. The French explorers Samuel de Champlain and Étienne Brûlé traveled up the Ottawa and Mattawa rivers and reached Georgian Bay in 1615.

North American lake, named for the native people who lived nearby, whose name is attested in English from 1650s, from French, from obsolete French huron "bristle-haired" (the French word frequently was used in reference to head-dresses, and that might be its original sense here), from Old French huré "bristly, unkempt, shaggy," which is of uncertain origin, but French sources indicate it probably is from Germanic.