The Toyota pickup whose name comes from a Coast Salish name for Mount Rainier is the Toyota Tacoma.
Toyota introduced the Tacoma in 1995 as a North American replacement for the Hilux-based Toyota Truck. The name was chosen from the Pacific Northwest’s geography: “Tacoma” is an English rendering of an Indigenous name associated with Mount Rainier, the prominent Washington volcano. The mountain has had several Indigenous names and spellings, so the precise original form and meaning can vary by language and source.
The first-generation Tacoma was classified as a compact pickup and was designed specifically for North American buyers. Later generations became mid-size trucks, with rear-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive versions, multiple cab styles and off-road-focused trims. Unlike the globally sold Hilux, the Tacoma remained primarily a North American nameplate.
The name can cause confusion because Tacoma is also the name of a Washington city near Puget Sound. That city and the mountain are historically connected through regional naming traditions, but the truck’s name refers to the mountain-related Coast Salish term, not to a Toyota engineering acronym. The Hilux, Tundra and Stout are separate Toyota truck names.