Donald Orth: King of Alaska Place Names

By Erik Johnson, Denali Historian

Remembering Donald Orth

If you ever find yourself wondering how or when an Alaska geographic feature got its name, there is an invaluable resource called the Dictionary of Alaska Place Names that researchers have been using the last 50 years.

Donald Orth at his home in Falls Church, VA, in November 2017

NPS Photo by Erik Johnson

In the 1960s, as a part of the commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of the Alaska Purchase, Donald Orth was charged with putting together the 1000+ page document that sought to identify the origin of Alaska place names. It was a daunting endeavor that required 35-40 staff, but since its publication it has helped historians, linguists, cartographers, and others understand the history of the 49th state.[1]

In late 2019, Donald Orth passed away at his home in Virginia at the age of 94. The D-day veteran was serving as the US Board of Geographic Names (BGN) Director when the Denali-McKinley political controversy initially erupted in 1975. As the leader of the BGN, Orth oversaw the multi-year struggle over changing the name of North America’s highest mountain, which stalled due to the efforts of an Ohio Congressman who blocked the State of Alaska’s wishes to remove "McKinley" in favor of “Denali.” The Obama administration finally changed the name by executive order in 2015.

Orth was the Director of the US Board of Geographic Names when the Denali-McKinley political controversy began in the 1970s; he often appeared in the press.

December 18, 1980 edition of the Spokane Chronicle

In November 2017, Orth shared his 1970s Denali-McKinley correspondence with the park and also conducted a short interview. In that conversation, he talked about the process of putting together the dictionary and acknowledged the important work before him that went into creating the Geographic Dictionary of Alaska in 1906. Orth agreed with the decision to finally replace "McKinley" with "Denali."

In a 2008 interview, Orth stated that “Language, history, geography, all of those things come together” in place names, and "they are part of the language, part of our psyche.” Orth’s legacy lives on in the phenomenal dictionary which contributes to our understanding of the great State of Alaska.

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[1] Orth had been working on collecting Alaska place names information as a hobby while he was working as a USGS surveyor in the 1950s.