Lower Tanana place name in the national news

Having just yesterday announced the Lower Tanana Athabascan place name database, Lower Tanana names are already in the national news. Leon Unruh directed me to a Washington Post story about the US Board of Geographic Names. The story focuses on efforts to change offensive names, and among the examples cited is the name Negrohead Creek. This name refers to a small stream originating about 10 miles west of Minto. The name is presumably a more sanitized variant of niggerhead, a word which means "tussock", those wobbly clumps of grass which complicates attempts to walk across the tundra landscape. But in this case the name is a directly translation of the local Lower Tanana Athabascan word łochenyatth. The local name for the creek is Łochenyatth No', where the final no' means "creek".

At its recent monthly meeting the US Board of Geographic Names discussed a proposal to rename the creek to Łochenyatth Creek, a name which combines an Athabascan base with an English generic term. This proposal had already been discussed by the Alaska board more than a year ago. Significantly, the proposal represents a grass-roots effort which grew out of work done by an 8th grade class at Randy Smith Middle School in Fairbanks. The class contacted linguist James Kari, who suggested the original Lower Tanana name as an alternative. The new name proposal respects both non-Natives who were offended by the old name and Natives who favor the even older Native name.

View the current GNIS entry for this place name.