 A popular belief suggests that the name derives from the French term "petit coude", meaning "little elbow". In fact, the name derives from an indigenous word, probably Maliseet or, possibly Mi 'kmaq. According to Maliseet Elder and linguist Dr. Peter Paul of Woodstock Reserve, the name refers to a wall of water rushing in: "now they call that petakuyak. [It] means' sound of thunder, 'well, the rush of water coming in like a thunderstorm." If the term has a Mi'kmaq origin, it could have been derived from the word Petkootkweăk, meaning "the river that bends like a bow", a reference to the right angle bend near Moncton. Acadians transformed this to Petcoudiac or Petitcoudiac, which was modified to Petitcodiac by British settlers. The river's heavy sedimentation led to the nickname "Chocolate River", due to the resulting brown tint. When the Petitcodiac River Causeway was built, an additional 10 million cubic metres (13 million cubic yards) of this sediment began to accumulate in the 4.7 km (2.9 mi) of river downstream from it.
