While most of the news stories and web biographies of this now-more-famous woman spell her name Sacajawea, the original spelling during the Lewis and Clark expedition was with a "g" not a "j": Sacagawea. The sound of the letter is a hard "g" so it's hard to understand how the change came to be.
PBS in a website designed to accompany the Ken Burns film on Lewis and Clark, documents that her name is derived from the Hidatsa words "sacaga" (for bird) and "wea" (for woman). The explorers spelled the name Sacagawea all seventeen times they recorded the name during the expedition.
Others spell the name Sakakawea. There are several other variations in use as well. Because the name is a transliteration of a name that was not originally written, these differences of interpretation are to be expected.
