The Cleveland Indians were not named for Louis Sockalexis.

In 1915 team owner Charles Somers put together a group of Cleveland sportswriters and told them to come up with a new name for the team.

"The title of Indians was their choice, it having been one of the names applied to the old National league club of Cleveland many years ago." (Cleveland Plain Dealer - January 17, 1915, Part Three, Page One)

Later in 1948, a man named Franklin Lewis wrote a book “The Cleveland Indians”. The book contained the following nonspecific paragraph which perpetuated the false rumor that the Indians may have been named after Louis Sockalexis:

“There is a story, still heard frequently, that the Indians were named after a real Indian known as Sockalexis, a wild slugger who joined the National League Spiders in 1897. Sock was strong and fast, and there was fire in every movement. But there was fire in his throat too, and it needed extinguishing. Between remedies for this and the discovery by enemy pitchers that left-handers who threw curves could baffle the redskin, Sock enjoyed a rapid demise as a big leaguer.”

The "story" is still repeated today, and even accepted as truth, some 70 years later.