Do the Native American names Pocahontas and Pocatello share a common linguistic root?

Question

Do the Native American names Pocahontas and Pocatello share a common linguistic root, since they both start with "Poca"?

Answer 1

The etymologies of those two names is at best conjecture. Given that the individuals in question (the town is named after the chief) are from completely unrelated tribes speaking unrelated languages (Pocahontas – an Algonkian tribe given her father's name, "Powhatan"; Pocatello, whose native name was Tondzaosha – member of the Shoshone tribe, whose language is part ofthe Uto-Aztecan group), there is no basis for thinking that there is anything in common between the names. It is not even established that "Pocatello" is a word of Shoshone.