Six Nations Mohawk history YouTuber Malcolm PL says that the name just means “good lake”. The “lake of shining waters” translation is sort of an embellished/exoticized translation of a type you’ll often see with Indigenous place names: the real meanings of the names are often kind of boring and utilitarian, maybe even offputting, but through some sort of telephone game the translation that sticks around in pop culture is some really poetic-sounding oh-so-close-to-nature thing that looks good on a postcard, something you can image someone with a Hollywood Indian accent saying while accompanied by serene flute music, and then a hawk screeches and thunder roars as the white man is enlightened by the Native’s sage wisdom. Compare and contrast the supposed meanings of “Idaho”, “Minnesota”, and the North Korean word for “hamburger”.

I often feel that Chinese is very flowery with its language, then you read some shit like “Melon City” randomly interspersed into it

Or just 芜湖 which I can’t help but read enthusiastically as ‘woohoo!’