Oregon is in the process of axing a slew of derogatory place names across the state, and the public is invited to help with the task of coming up with new monikers.

The effort was initiated by the Oregon Legislature, which earlier this year voted to speed up the process of replacing offensive place names. The organization tasked with the job is the Oregon Geographic Names Board , a volunteer committee made up of historians, geographers, engineers, retired journalists and educators, which also has members affiliated with two of Oregon’s biggest history museums: the Oregon Historical Society and the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute.

The board’s first task was coming up with a list of geographic features with “offensive names,” defined as those that contain words “insulting and derogato

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