PORTLAND — The state Geographic Names Board voted to rename roughly two dozen places, removing the word "squaw" from many of them.

Oregon passed a law in 2001 that asks for the removal of the "squaw" word, which some find offensive. Oregon has 180 such names, more than any other state, said Maret Pajutee, a U.S. Forest Service ecologist.

Some of the new names could prove difficult for many Oregonians to pronounce. The board, for example, voted Tuesday to change Coos County's Squaw Island to Qochyax Island, which is pronounced "coke-yaw," said Howard Roy, Cultural Development Coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians.

The tribe first proposed the name "Qochyax Women and Children's Island," as local women and children would flee to avoid being taken in slave-hunting trips, Roy said.

The name, however, was considered too long, so the tribe shortened it.

If approved, Squaw Creek near Sisters would be called Whychus Creek. It would be a historic name for the stream, first recorded in an 1855 railroad survey, Pajutee said. The name derives from "the place we cross the water" in Sahaptin, one of the three languages of the Warm Springs tribes, Pajutee said.

Most proposals replaced "squaw" with tribal words. Akawa Butte, Little Akawa Butte and Akawa Gulch, all in the Sisters Ranger District, borrow the Wasco word for a female badger. That animal's Paiute word passes on to Hoona Ridge in the Bend/Fort Rock Ranger District.

The same district gets Moohoo'oo Mountain, from the Paiute word for owl, three species of which live on the mountain.

Not all the names involve a change from the word "squaw."

The board agreed to rename Tillamook County's Daley Lake as Winema Lake, following common local usage, and approved the name Chinese Massacre Cove for a Wallowa County site where settlers killed Chinese miners in 1887.

The only name not approved yesterday was Sesti Tgawaals, a Native term for "Mount Shasta viewpoint" that was proposed to replace "squaw" in some Klamath County sites.

Klamath County commissioners complained that the new name is too difficult. The county is working on an alternate proposal.

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names must approve Oregon's recommendations before they become official.