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 ...

Affected tribes lost millions of acres of land as ... whose name means “six butterflies” in the regional Athabaskan language from southwestern Oregon and northwestern California.

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 ...