Oklahoma reservoirs and dams named "Oknoname"

Communities United States
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I noticed recently that there are about 600 reservoirs and 1,300 dams in Oklahoma that contain “Oknoname” in their name. Typically this is followed by a number, for example “Oknoname 083021 Reservoir” or “Oknoname 067001 Dam”.

I suspect that this might be a data entry error, with “Oknoname” being derived perhaps from OK (Oklahoma) + NONAME. I checked the history on a few of these and it seems that they mostly came from an early GNIS import. The GNIS database still contains entries for the reservoirs (example), though GNIS no longer tracks names of dams.

Does anyone have any more information on the origin of these names? Assuming they originate from a data error and aren’t actually in common use, I’m thinking it might be appropriate to start retagging them somehow (possibly by removing the name and adding a numeric ref instead).

FWIW I did a little digging to try and determine whether these names are correct or not; here’s what I found:

Doing an internet search for “Oknoname” yields some results, but I believe these are mostly on websites that auto-generate pages for places in OSM (similar to the process described on Wikipedia: Reliability of GNIS data where errors in Wikipedia are propagated to other sites, masking the original error; see also xkcd: citogenesis).

The only reference to “Oknoname” I found on wildlifedepartment.com (the official site of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation) is this section of the FAQ page:

Q: On Google Earth, I keep seeing small lakes labeled “Oknoname.” Can I fish in them?
A: These are watershed flood control reservoirs built by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Most are on private land, so you would need permission from the landowner to fish on the property.

Which unfortunately doesn’t seem to clarify whether these names are correct or not.

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Paging our resident water impoundment expert @Matt

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Searching for Oknoname? Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors.

I may try to do a little more research myself, but have you looked at historical USGS Topo maps? That’s often a good way to prove (or disprove) naming. (With the caveat that USGS didn’t always get things right.)

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I hadn’t thought to check old USGS maps. From a quick look it seems that most of these reservoirs aren’t labeled on them (they’re mostly pretty small).

But I did another Overpass query and the plot thickened. There are a bunch of “Ksnoname” reservoirs in, you guessed it, Kansas, and also some “Mononame” in Missouri and a few in CO, OH, AL, GA, and OR following the same pattern. The ones in Kansas don’t appear in GNIS when I search for “Ksnoname” (I haven’t checked to see if they’ve been corrected or just removed), but the “Mononame” ones are still there, and so are the “Ohnoname” ones.

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I haven’t looked at the other states but I have a couple of observations.

  • The “Oknoname” names are widely used in official documents by both federal and state agencies.
  • As you noted, the reservoirs do not seem to have had names on historical USGS Topo maps.
  • There are some anecdotes that suggest that the names were formed from “OK” and “no name” but nothing verifiable.

I think that suggests that these are at least candidates for official_name. But maybe it’s official_name=Oknoname * with noname=yes?

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Here’s something else to add. The “noname” names are present in the National Inventory of Dams but some of the dams have additional names.

For example: https://nid.sec.usace.army.mil/#/dams/system/KS04598/description

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This reminds me of another system of systematic water feature naming:

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This same topic has apparently come up multiple times before, as early as August 2011. Whatever we determine to be the meaning behind these names, we should document it on the wiki somewhere.

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Hey! Sorry for the delay in my response.
Yeah it looks like they number the dams when there isn’t a name to go with them. I used the National Inventory of Dams to verify or fix the locations of a bunch of them a year ago. Also some now have alt_names, about 450 of them.

I think I only put the newer name in alt_name because I was doing them through Map Roulette and I just wanted to be careful.