Hi Joan, welcome to the SDMB. Not sure if you’re aware of the format of the message board medium in general, but nobody is going to e-mail you. I suspect you posted this OP and then, not understanding how this works, you left, never to return. If this is true, please confirm by failing to post a response in this thread.
How about the Washington Redskins?
But then that’s not true. We have a Black Hawk County but no Black Hawk State. As far as the state nickname is concerned think about the hero of James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking novels which were very popular at the time Iowa was opened to settlement by virtue of a series of land grabs at the expense of Black Hawk’s people and a bunch of other native tribes and bands.
The “Hawkeye” label smells of a little chamber of commerce hucksterism.
It’s not an ‘official’ name, but everyone that lives in Winn Parish (N. central La.) uses the term, the “quarters”, when referring to an area where 99% of the residents are black.
The term has been used for as long as I can recall. Even all of the blacks use that term when referring to the area.
Supposedly, it was originally called the “n****r quarters”, but was shortened to ‘the quarters’.
Not sure when that happened, though. (I’ll call some of my kinfolk that still live in Winn parish, and see if they know.)
BGN decisions officially affect only what names are used on federal maps and databases. There’s a lot of deference paid to these decisions by state and local mapmakers, but the feds can’t “demand” anything—and certainly not of a state or its subdivisions.
I don’t ever recall a controversy over the name of an incorporated municipality or anything else with a posted sign, though the Post Office Department demanded some simplified spellings back in the 19th century. (The various Pittsburgs lost their Hs, though the one in Pennsylvania later reclaimed theirs).
Local usage is supposed to guide the BGN rather than be guided by it, but that sometimes conflicts with the quoted Policy V. I’m sure there are some “Nigger Hollers” deep in Appalachia that locals still know by that name, whatever the topo map says.
There is a way to test this: send a letter to either Kinnikeet or Trent, North Carolina. When the Postal Service opened post offices in each community, in 1883 and 1898, it renamed the towns Avon and Frisco, respectively. And that’s wbat each is still called.
They’re neighboring towns on Hatteras Island, if you’re looking…
One in the community I grew up in…
We had one called Swede Hollow right in St. Paul, Minnesota, but the city evicted all the residents and burned it down in 1956, and made it into a park. Still named Swede Hollow Park.
But “Swede Hollow” wasn’t considered a derogatory name–except by the Norwegians!
Nice one,
No, they changed Blackman to some kind of aboriginal name.
In one way, since their ancestors discovered the places before my ancestor, it kind of makes sense, but it’s a bit demotivating, to see my family being erased from history, and with whatever I do in life, nothing will ever be named after me.
Don’t be so glum; you might die from some, heretofore unknown disease.
exactly. Or you could morph into your own special kind of serial killer, which could be known as a Blackman personality type.
You have to apply yourself.
Thanks for the encouragement, but somehow I doubt they’ll name a murder-pattern, Blackman
Of course, nobody calls it Olympic Valley. I’ve lived in Northern California my whole life, only a couple hours from there and I’ve never heard it called that. The ski resort is still called Squaw Valley and everyone refers to the area as Squaw Valley or just Squaw.
I doubt the Postal Service will care what town name you put on your letter; they only look at the ZIP code for delivery.
No he wasn’t, and no, they haven’t.
Though there is an actual place name of Squaw Valley, CA. It’s down outside of Fresno.
Not with that attitude they won’t.
I drove through there once. I remember thinking, “THIS is where they held the Olympics?” There wasn’t a big enough mountain to hold a tobaggan race.
Nickajack Lake. Nickajack Dam. Nickajack Gap. Nickajack Cave. Nickajack Road.
These place names all derive from the town of Nickajack which formerly existed in Cherokee territory, and from the Nickajack Trail which used to lead to that town.
There are competing word origins for this name, but the earliest explanation I have seen, and the one I find most plausible, is that it is a reference to a black man who lived among the Cherokee, named Jack Civil.
I thought of this too, especially with that caricature of a screaming generic American Indian.
I’d like to think a NYC football or baseball team would be called The New York Jews.
I’d root for them for that alone.
Imagine what its helmet or jersey logo would be…