Before Puyallup was a city, it was the name of an Indian tribe. The Puyallup people are Native Americans whose reservation is in western Washington State's Puget Sound area.

The original name of the tribe was spwiya'laphabsh, meaning generous or welcoming. The tribe originally spoke the Puyallup Nisqually tongue of the Salishan family of languages spoken among Northwest Coast original peoples.

Washington State has lots of Native American place names because of the many tribes of Indians who resided here before the Spanish, English, French, Russians and other Europeans showed up.