So the country (and the larger country of Nigeria) are both named after the river Niger (for purposes of niceties, in the last 3 decades Americans have begun to prefer the French pronunciation of "nee-jhair" over the Anglicized version of "ny-djerr" in a linguistic parallel to why we now emphasize the first syllable in the name of the 7th planet). But like noted above, the river was renamed by Euro explorer when they were scouting the land for imperial outlets in the 19th century. Before whites showed up, no one called it that. The North American racial slur pre-dates the renaming of the river by at least a century with the word "negger" showing up in printed American English some time in the late 1600s.
The original name of the river varies among the area ethnic nationalities:
from Wiki
The Niger has different names in the different languages of the region:
* Manding: Jeliba or Joliba "great river"
* Igbo: Orimiri or Orimili "great water"
* Tuareg: Egerew n-Igerewen "river of rivers"
* Songhay: Isa Ber "big river", or simply Isa "the river" in Zarma
* Hausa: Kwara
* Yoruba: Oya
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