Adopted 3 April 1934 on C367 as labelled on British Admiralty Chart #583, 1963 et seq. Nitinat Lake forms the boundary between Barclay Land District and Renfrew Land District.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Named after the local Indigenous people. In 1864, Robert Brown (Royal Geographic Society's Vancouver Island Exploration Expedition) mentioned "...Whyack, the fortified village of the warlike Nittinahts."

Source: BC place name cards, files, correspondence and/or research by BC Chief Geographer/Geographical Names Office.

"Nitinat: A Nootka tribe on a tidal lake of the same name. Population 180 in 1911. Their villages are Carmanah, Clo-ose, Tso-oquahna, and Wyah." [various spellings in old maps and documents: Nettinat, Niten-aht, Nitinaht, Nittinat...]

Source: Handbook of Indians of Canada, published as an Appendix to the 10th Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 1912.