What would it take to change Cascadia place names?
Place names are heated political topic these days. After a decades-long battle to officially re-name North America's highest peak, Alaska's Denali, in 2015 – one of Donald Trump's first executive orders was to officially rename it Mount McKinley again. And the Associated Press was kicked out of the White House press pool because it refused to change its style guide and call the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America" as Trump hopes it will be called.
Names are loaded with meaning and emotion. It's the first marker of how we identify with a place, and these names filter down into songs, art, commercial products, and other place names. Mount Rainier, to take one example, has inspired the name of a brand of beer, a type of cherries, a major street in Seattle, and Tacoma's minor league baseball team. But the mountain was named for explorer George Vancouver's buddy, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier, who fought against the colonists in the American Revolutionary War and never saw the peak.
The Puyallup Tribe, whose ancestral lands include the mountain, which they see as sacred, recently started a campaign to rename Mount Rainier. What exactly the new name would be is in question since tribes around the region had slightly different names for Washington state' highest peak. A paper by a Puyallup tribal language consultant published in February found there are at least twenty tribal names for the mountain. The most commonly agreed upon name is Tahoma, which comes from taqʷuʔmaʔ in Lushootseed, the native language most widely spoken in the Puget Sound area.
There are plenty of other peaks that have names that predate the colonial era. Mount Hood was originally known as Wy'east, Mount St. Helens' original name was Loowit (as well as other regional variations), Mount Adams was first called Pahto, and Koma Kulshan or Kulshan were names originally attributed to Mount Baker. The Columbia River, named for Christopher Columbus, was originally called Nchi Wana by speakers of the Sehaptin language.
How would the renaming of those place happen? In 2023, Washington state renamed 9 geographic features (lakes, creeks, and mountains) formerly named using a derogatory term for Native American women, in response to an order issued by Dept of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in 2021. The state process requires the public to submit requests for a name change to the Washington State Committee on Geographic Names which is part of the state's Dept. of Natural Resources.
So, submit away if you're for returning to the pre-colonial names for the highest peaks and largest river in Cascadia.
To receive recognition from the US government, the US Board on Geographic Names must approve it, and they're also open to public input, though official policy state that "Changing a name merely to correct or re-establish historical usage is not in and of itself a reason to change a name." In 2009, the board rejected citizen proposals to rename Mount Rainier.
Meanwhile, Rep Strom Peterson introduced a bill this session to re-design Washington state's flag. But why not go one step further and rename the state, which honors a slave-owning Virginian who never set foot in Cascadia? In 1853, the territory in the northwest corner of the United States was named "Washington" though "Columbia" was originally proposed. The reason for the switch? Apparently to avoid confusion with the District of Columbia.
Years of residents explaining to people they're from "the other Washington" would argue it has only increased the confusion.
Renaming a state probably requires an act of Congress, says retired University of Washington law professor Hugh Spitzer. "To change the name of the state of Washington would likely require the approval of Congress and a number of adjustments in the state constitution," Spitzer said. "So it would be a great deal of work."
In 2020, a ballot measure in Rhode Island officially shortened the state's name from The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to remove connections to slavery. But that quick fix didn't require wholesale changes in maps, documents, legislation, or road signs.
If the state could be renamed, what should it be? Writer Bill Dietrich proposed Cascade, and others have suggested Wenatchee, Salish, or Chinook. Personally, I'm in favor of naming the state for its tallest mountain: Tahoma.
Photo credits: Columbia Gorge by Rizka, CC BY-SA 4.0. Painting of Peter Rainier by Thomas Hickey, public domain.
