Anishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples, who all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian-language family.The meaning of Anishnaabeg is "First-" or "Original-Peoples".

Another definition refers to "the good humans", or good people, meaning those who are on the right road/path given to them by the Creator or Gitchi-manitou (Great Spirit).Not all Anishinaabemowin speakers, however, call themselves Anishinaabeg.

The Ojibwe people who moved to what are now the prairie provinces of Canada call themselves Nakawē(-k) and their branch of the Anishinaabe language, Nakawēmowin.

(The French ethnonym for the group was the Saulteaux).

Particular Anishinaabeg groups have different names from region to region.There are many variant spellings of the Anishinaabe name, depending on the transcription scheme and also on whether the name is singular or plural.

Therefore, different spelling systems may indicate vowel length or spell certain consonants differently (Anishinabe, Anicinape); meanwhile, variants ending in -eg/ek (Anishinaabeg, Anishinabek) come from an Algonquian plural, while those ending in an -e come from an Algonquian singular.The name Anishinaabe is realised as Nishnaabe, in some parts of North America, most prominently among the Odawa.

The cognate word Neshnabé comes from the Potawatomi, a people long allied with the Odawa and Ojibwe in the Council of Three Fires.

Identified as Anishinaabe, but not part of the Council of Three Fires, are the Nipissing, Mississauga and Algonquin.Closely related to the Ojibwe and speaking a language mutually intelligible with Anishinaabemowin (Anishinaabe language) are the Oji-Cree (also known as "Severn Ojibwe").

Their most common autonym is Anishinini (plural: Anishininiwag) and they call their language Anishininiimowin.Among the Anishinaabeg, the Ojibwe collectively call the Nipissings and the Algonquins as Odishkwaagamii (those who are at the end of the lake), while the Nipissings who identify themselves as Algonquins call the Algonquins proper as Omàmiwinini (those who are downstream).