In the 1950s, Pinnie Naktialuk (1930-1969) and his family were part of the camp in the Inukjuak area lead by Johnny Inukpuk. In the mid-1960s, they moved into Inukjuak, along with many others in the area. In an interview in May 2004 with the artist’s son, John Naktialuk, the evolution of the name “Pinnie” was explained:

In the early days when we had to go to be officially named with the Church and the Government, people always arrived with a real Inuit name, and the preacher or administrator asked them to come up with a Christian name. Last summer we were visiting another community and we found a man whose mother was a neighbour of my father. They went to the church to be baptized officially at the same time, and when they were trying to figure out a name for my father, he was named Benjamin. I don’t know where that came from. They weren’t able to say the English name Benjamin the right way so they came out with the short version, which must have been Benny. But this might have been very strange to his parents, so they thought of something very easy to say, which was Pinnie.