# Racist names of towns, etc. that still exist **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 16, 2011, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178 "2011-11-16T22:57:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![joan316](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dfb087/32.png) [@joan316](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joan316)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/1 "2011-11-16T22:57:41Z")
On a recent Jon Stewart Daily Show, there was a segment on Rick Perry’s ranch named N\*_**head, as well as lakes, cities (I think) with N\*\*\*\*\*, such as N**_Lake, NY. If those anecdotes are true, why haven’t steps been taken to change those names? Joan at [maxangel95@comcast.net](mailto:maxangel95@comcast.net) ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/2 "2011-11-16T23:04:27Z")
> [@joan316](#): > > On a recent Jon Stewart Daily Show, there was a segment on Rick Perry’s ranch named N\*_**head, as well as lakes, cities (I think) with N\*\*\*\*\*, such as N**_Lake, NY. If those anecdotes are true, why haven’t steps been taken to change those > names? > > Joan at [maxangel95@comcast.net](mailto:maxangel95@comcast.net) The name of Perry’s ranch is not N\*\*\*\*head. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/3 "2011-11-16T23:12:10Z")
Moved to proper forum. No harm, no foul. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/4 "2011-11-16T23:22:07Z")
In Perry’s case, it wasn’t exactly the name of the camp, but rather a name painted on a rock nearby. It was changed eventually, but not for several years after Perry noted it. In general, it’s just inertia. No one goes to the trouble to make the change for a small lake or stream in a remote area. ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/5 "2011-11-16T23:24:47Z")
There was a case in Australia, which at first was like this > **['Offensive' stand name to stay](https://www.theage.com.au/national/offensive-stand-name-to-stay-20030424-gdvlcs.html)** but ended up like this > **['Nigger' Brown issue laid to rest at last](https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/nigger-brown-issue-laid-to-rest-at-last-20090218-geau2p.html)** ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/6 "2011-11-16T23:38:46Z")
How 'bout [Nigton, TX](http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hnn24), settled by. . . descendants of former slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Dufus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c77e96/32.png) [@Dufus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dufus)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/7 "2011-11-16T23:39:16Z")
[Racist Street Names](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Martin%20Luther%20King%20Boulevard) ---
**Author:** ![Hbns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hbns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hbns)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/8 "2011-11-16T23:46:06Z")
There is [Squaw Lake, Minnesota](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw_Lake,_Minnesota). In the 1990’s the state [passed legislation](http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200104/30_robertsont_squawlake-m/) requiring renaming of all geographical features with the word squaw in them. The town resisted at that time, and as far as I know continues to use the name. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/9 "2011-11-16T23:46:59Z")
Don’t look at me. I come from the Hawkeye State.\* \*Which probably still pisses off people because it’s for Black Hawk - even if it is supposed to be complimentary. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/10 "2011-11-16T23:56:23Z")
There is (or was last I heard) a creek in the North Cascades in WA called something like Nigger Joe Creek. It had an interesting history in that the area was actually settled by a black prospector who went by that name. In the 90’s when the state made an effort to change the name, his descendents, some of whom still lived in the area, came out and opposed wiping their ancestor’s name off the map (the proposed replacement was some bland name like “Pine Creek” or something like that). I think they tried to come up with some sort of compromise like simply dropping the first part, but there was already a Joe Creek nearby. I never did hear what happened with it-- I should try to dig up some old newspaper articles on it. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/11 "2011-11-17T00:11:23Z")
I am not sure if it’s still the case, but as recently as around 10 or 15 years ago, there was a little slot canyon off of the Colorado River about 10 miles from Moab Utah, (which is right near Arches National Park) named Nigger Bill’s Canyon, complete with a sign at the mouth of the trail stating the name. I think the topographical maps of the area also had the name printed; it wasn’t merely a long-forgotten local nickname, but the recognized, official title. The odd thing is that there may currently still be less black residents per capita in that area (near the Four Corners) than just about anyplace in the entire USA, nevermind a hundred years ago, and the story was that there was an old black miner who was actually a well-regarded member of the community in the early 1900’s, and the canyon was originally named _in his honor,_ as that was the name he was known to all his friends by…:eek: It seems like the name was (fairly) recently re-named something like Black Bill’s Canyon, but I haven’t been back down there for a while. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/12 "2011-11-17T01:09:04Z")
Bristol in England, has a street named Blackboy Hill. Interestingly, it is at the end of Whiteladies Road. Bristol was the main port from which the Atlantic slave trade operated. [Wikipedia claims](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboy_Hill,_Bristol) that the Blackboy Hill street name is not connected with the slave trade, but rather comes from an inn called The Blackboy that once stood there. However, this logic seems faulty. The inn name may have preceded the street name, but seems likely to have been connected to the slave trade itself. The Wikipedia entry also seems to imply that the name Blackboy Hill is informal, and not the official street name, but I am pretty sure that when I lived in Bristol in the 1970s it was up on the street signs. Perhaps it has since been officially changed for reasons of political correctness, but is still in use informally by the locals. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/13 "2011-11-17T02:04:54Z")
> [@Hbns](#): > > There is [Squaw Lake, Minnesota](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw_Lake,_Minnesota). > In the 1990’s the state [passed legislation](http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200104/30_robertsont_squawlake-m/) requiring renaming of all geographical features with the word squaw in them. The town resisted at that time, and as far as I know continues to use the name. And note that the vast majority of the residents of the town are Native Americans (about 2/3rds, as I recall), so they could easily vote to change the name, if they were offended. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/14 "2011-11-17T02:44:27Z")
I used to live next to the Fort Worth suburb of White Settlement, which, if Wikipedia is to be believed, is where the white settlers settled. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/15 "2011-11-17T04:06:21Z")
The US Board on Geographic Names [has a policy on this matter:](http://geonames.usgs.gov/docs/pro_pol_pro.pdf) (PDF) POLICY V: DEROGATORY NAMES The guiding principle of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names for the names of places, features, and areas in the United States and its territories is to adopt for official Federal use the names found in present-day local usage. An exception to this principle occurs when a name is shown to be highly offensive or derogatory to a particular racial or ethnic group, gender, or religious group. In such instances, the Board does not approve use of the names for Federal maps, charts, and other publications. The Board, however, is conservative in this matter and prefers to interfere as little as possible within the use of names in everyday language because attitudes and perceptions of words considered to be pejorative vary between individuals and can change connotation from one generation to another. Geographic names are part of the historical record of the United States, and that record may be either distorted or disrupted by the elimination of names associated with particular groups of Americans. Such unwarranted action by the Board could, in time, be a disservice to the people the process is meant to protect. In (I think) 1963, the BGN recognized that the pejorative form of Negro was regarded universally as an unacceptable term, and so changed all such references in geographic names to _Negro_. In 1974, it made the same decision to change universally _Jap_ to _Japanese_. On two occasions in the 1990s, the BGN was asked to make the term _Squaw_ the third such designation, but after two years or so of analysis and investigation, the board decided that the term _Squaw_ would not be changed universally basically because there was some doubt on all uses being pejorative. Several states have not been so careful with research, and have mandated changes to _Squaw_ names. ---
**Author:** ![kurtisokc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kurtisokc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kurtisokc)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/16 "2011-11-17T04:19:36Z")
Squaw Valley California actually has the distiction of hosting the 1960 winter olympics, though I believe it has since been renamed Olympic Valley. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/17 "2011-11-17T04:49:58Z")
My surname is Blackman and one of my ancestors was a great explorer, unfortunately, due to PC whining, every place named after him has been changed. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/18 "2011-11-17T05:21:07Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Bristol in England, has a street named Blackboy Hill. Interestingly, it is at the end of Whiteladies Road. When I was in Wales I had drinks in the Black Boy Inn. (Their logo is a black African boy.) ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/19 "2011-11-17T05:25:49Z")
> [@Hbns](#): > > There is [Squaw Lake, Minnesota](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw_Lake,_Minnesota). And there is Cecil Adams, devoted to fighting ignorance, who has undertaken to explain the [truth behind the notion that “squaw” has an offensive origin](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2542/is-squaw-an-obscene-insult). > [@](#): > > “It is as certain as any historical fact can be that the word squaw that the English settlers in Massachusetts used for ‘Indian woman’ in the early 1600s was adopted by them from the word squa that their Massachusett-speaking neighbors used in their own language to mean ‘female, younger woman,’ and not from Mohawk ojiskwa’, ‘vagina,’ which has the wrong shape [sound], the wrong meaning, and was used by people with whom they then had no contact. The resemblance that might be perceived between squaw and the last syllable of the Mohawk word is coincidental.” This comes to us from Ives Goddard, a specialist in linguistics and curator at the Smithsonian Institution, writing in News From Indian Country, mid-April 1997. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178/20 "2011-11-17T05:28:16Z")
> [@Namkcalb](#): > > My surname is Blackman and one of my ancestors was a great explorer, unfortunately, due to PC whining, every place named after him has been changed. Did they change the placenames to Namkalb? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-of-towns-etc-that-still-exist/603178.md?page=2)