The alternative name of the language, based on an endoethnonym, is Gilyak. It was used in the national literature until the middle of the 20 ^th century and even later in some foreign research. Nivkh were called Gilyak mostly by their Tungusic-speaking neighbors, c.f. Neghidal гилаха , Oroch, Ulcha, Nanai (dialect) гилэми , Orok гилэ or гилэɣэ.  Based on historical sources, it can be assumed that the гиляк exonym was brought into Russian via the Ewenki language, in which Nivkh are called гилэкэ , even though the form of this word is not very typical for Manchu-Tungus languages. 

The name Nivkh comes from the Amur ethnonym, which means “man”. In Sakhalin-Nivkh this word is pronounced as nigvng , plural nigvngun . A more complete version includes the possessive pronoun of the 1st person plural: min + nigvngun “our people”. In folklore texts, the protagonist is usually introduced as min + ngafk “our comrade”, “one of us/ours”. The contemporary Nivkh call their language nigvng + dugs “the Nivkh word”.