Our galaxy has over 400 billion stars and our Sun is just one of them.
Now that’s alot of stars and because we live in a spiral galaxy,  the
stars in the arms of the spirals can be seen across a dark night sky. 
This is how it came to be called the Milky Way.  Other people in ancient
times had names for it also, such as the Greek who called it the Celestial
River. 

The Cherokee people also have a name for it.  It is called
Gili uli shv sda nvyi and is written like this:

We also have a story of how it came to be named
that and it goes something like this.

There was a village that had a problem with missing cornmeal.  You see,
corn and corn meal was stored for the village to eat and the people were
noticing that some meal was missing in the mornings. They also saw big dog
tracks on the ground where the meal was stolen. Two warriors went to
the wisest old woman and asked her what they should do and she told them.

One night, two warriors stayed up all night and watched the corn to see what
was happening.  Then suddenly, in the darkest part of the night, they saw a
big dog come from the north and start to eat the meal.

Remembering what the old woman told them,
just when the time was right,
jumped out and whipped the dog’s tail.

Well, that really scared the dog and he yelped and yiped,
and he jumped up and ran back up north to where he came from.
And when he ran, cornmeal would spill out of his mouth as
he was yelping, and leaving a white trail across the sky.

And that is what gave us the name for what you know as the Milky Way:
Gili uli shv sda nvyi, which means “where the dog ran.”