The name was applied first to the region of the modern city and the word is of undoubted
Algonquin origin. Early spellings: Quebecq (Levasseur, 1601); Kébec (Lescarbot, 1609);
Quebec (Champlain, 1613). Champlain wrote of the location in 1632: "It ... is a strait of the
river, so called by the Indians" - a reference to the Algonquin word for "narrow passage"
or "strait" to indicate the narrowing of the river at Cape Diamond. The term is
common to the Algonquin, Cree, and Micmac languages and signifies the same in each
dialect.
Source: Hamilton, William B. (1978): The Macmillan book of Canadian place names, Macmillan of Canada, Toronto, p. 340.