'wapiti' originates from Shawnee and Cree (Algonquian languages), specifically the word 'waapiti', where 'waap' meant 'white' and the element referring to the 'rump/hindquarters' yielded the sense 'white rump.'

'waapiti' entered Canadian French and then English as 'wapiti' in the 18th–19th centuries, becoming the established English name alongside 'elk' in North America.

Initially, it described the animal by the feature 'white rump'; in English it came to denote the species Cervus canadensis (North American elk).