A reef in Long Island Sound has been renamed to remove the word “Negro,” clearing the state map of any reference to the once common but now offensive label for Black people.
“Totoket Bar” replaced “Negro Heads” on nautical charts marking the outcropping 2.8 miles southeast of Branford, according to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. In a change also finalized earlier this year, “Freeman Hill Brook” replaced “Negro Hill Brook” for the name of a stream that flows from Burlington into Bristol.
The reef’s new name is from the Quinnipiac word for the onshore area north of the bar, according to the federal agency.