squaw

this racist, sexist, demeaning term may have originally meant simply "woman" but it was used by white settlers as a slur for Native American women and as slang for "vagina." Most American Indians consider it insulting. In the U.S., the names of some 1,000 lakes, creeks, springs, ponds, bays, narrows, islands, mountains, gulches, bluffs, valleys, gaps, cities, reservation communities, and other places included the word "squaw." The U.S. Board on Geographic Names has a Derogatory Name Policy, which was invoked, for example, in 1963 to change all instances of the word Nigger to Negro, and in 1971 all instances of Jap to Japanese. Beginning with Minnesota in 1995, a number of states have replaced the offensive "squaw" with other names. (In Maine, one frustrated county changed all "squaw" names to "moose" in one fell swoop to avoid thinking up new ones.) See also sports teams' names and mascots.