POMFRET — Sometimes, a name isn’t just a name.
Last summer, the owners of the ski hill formerly known as Suicide Six announced they’d changed its name to Saskadena Six.
Saskadena, in Abenaki language, means “standing mountain,” and the change was made alongside guidance from the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk-Abenaki, according to the Woodstock Inn & Resort, which owns the ski area.
The change away from the old name, which the owners called “insensitive,” was intended to honor Vermont’s original residents and reflect increased awareness of mental health, inn officials said.
Pomfret commemorated that change in its 2022 Town Report vital statistics.
“Suicide Six Ski Area of Pomfret VT, age 86,” was marked in the deaths category, and “Saskadena Six Ski Area, child of Woodstock Resort Corporation” under births.
But not everyone took the name change at one of Vermont’s oldest ski hills so lightly.
“This new name , well , I can not even get up the courage to laugh about it,” Doug Tuthill, a 62-year-old lifelong Pomfret resident, wrote on the town’s listserv late last month. “When folks ask me where it is , I just refer them to Snow Flake mountain , Named rightfully after the snow flakes that changed the name .”
Name changes of local institutions take up a growing portion of Vermont news. In Rutland, the retirement of the “Raiders” mascot for the local high school dragged on for two years. Green Mountain Union High School in Chester has similarly flip-flopped about retiring its mascot, the Chieftains. The Rochester/Randolph Area Sports Trails Association, often referred to as RASTA, changed its name to Ridgeline Outdoor Collective out of respect for the Rastafari religion and its culture.
While few people spend time thinking about the process of naming itself, the field of onomastics is devoted to the study of names and naming.
Laurel Sutton is the immediate past president of the American Name Society, which promotes the study of onomastics. She’s also the co-founder of Catchword, a branding and naming agency.
People create names mostly for convenience, Sutton said, describing the process as innately human.
“We make up names. We make up words. We’re people — that’s what they do. But words have meaning,” she said. “There’s nothing inherent about a name that makes you have to stick with it.”
Over time, people become emotionally invested in names, Sutton said, which can explain their resistance to change. When she works with companies in the midst of a name change, Sutton often finds employees upset at the idea of leaving behind an old name. Her work then becomes largely psychological.
“It’s a little like family therapy,” Sutton said, describing corporate name changes.
America’s colonial history has led to many “terrible names,” Sutton said, expressing support for organizations that update their monikers.
If choosing a name from an Indigenous language, Sutton suggested people should consult with that group, as Saskadena Six did, before deciding whether it’s acceptable.
In Pomfret, Tuthill’s frustration with the change to Saskadena Six stemmed from what he characterized as society’s fixation on petty issues and erasing history.
He pointed to changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day and tearing down Confederate monuments as examples of the trend.
“Once it gets started, it just gets worse and worse and worse,” Tuthill said in an interview.
On Pomfret’s listserv, Tuthill’s frustration sparked further reflection about the town’s changes. A different resident brought attention to another name, “Teago Gun Club Road,” which, the resident said, was “sanitized” and changed to Wild Apple Road.
But perhaps change is the only constant.
Scott Woodward, a former Pomfret resident and selectboard member, did a little digging. Even “Teago Gun Club” was a temporary name. Before that, it was called “Windy Acres Road.” And now, “Wild Apple Road.”
Woodward’s historical research began after the discussion about the Saskadena Six name. When he discovered the history of Wild Apple Road, he had a good laugh to himself.
“I was like, ‘Woah. Here’s some change I didn’t know about,’” he recalled.
To Woodward, the frustration over name changes is all of a piece with frustrations about a changing town and a changing state. Maybe it’s Pomfret increasing the size of its selectboard, or conversations about preserving Vermont’s rural character in the face of increasing development. Those discussions prompt intense opinions, too, Woodward said.
But changes, whatever they might be, seem to elicit stronger responses than they once did, Woodward suggested.
“Why do some things that are quote-unquote ‘woke’ elicit such strong emotional reactions?” he asked. “Are we somehow becoming hyper-sensitive to change, and then wanting to apply these labels and make it mean something more than it really does?”
In its first year with the new name, Saskadena Six has endured a warm and lean January and much of February. Finally, though, there’s been snow in the forecast. The weather, too, changes.