Okanagan Falls
Feature Type:Community - An unincorporated populated place, generally with a population of 50 or more, and having a recognized central area that might contain a post office, store and/or community hall, etc, intended for the use of the general public in the region.
Status: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: S end of Skaha Lake, between Penticton and Oliver, Similkameen Division Yale Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 49°20'59"N, 119°34'04"W at the approximate population centre of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 82E/5
Other Recorded Names:
Dogtown
Origin Notes and History:

Okanagan Falls (Post Office) adopted 6 October 1936 on Geological Survey sheet 420A, as established on BC Lands Map 1EM, 1915. Form of name changed to Okanagan Falls (Community) 28 February 1983. See Okanagan Lake for name origin information.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"(Dogtown), at south end of Skaha (Dog) Lake, 12 miles south of Penticton. Subdivision plan registered by Okanagan Falls Townsite Co., October 13, 1893. Okanagan Falls Post Office was opened 1 February 1899; John McLellan, PM." (12th Report of the Okaanagan Historical Society, 1948).

Source: included with note

At least forty-seven different spellings of this name have been found, beginning with Lewis and Clark's 'Otchenaukane' in 1805 and David Thompson's 'Ookanawgan' in 1811. Sometimes there seem to be just about as many theories as to the dervation of the name, but the majority agree that the compound word okanagan contains the word for 'head.' One likely translation is 'looking toward the upper end [head]?'; another is 'seeing the top or head,' possibly referring to the summit of Mount Chopaka. The anthropologist Teit wrote, "Okanagan is said to be derived from the name of a place on Okanagan River, somewhere near the Falls, so named because it was the "head" of the river, at least as far as the ascent of the salmon was concerned.'
The settlement of Okanagan Falls takes its name from the pretty twin falls that were here before the modern flood-control system eliminated them. The Okanagan Indian Band had extensive salmon-drying racks here, and the place was usually thought of as their headquarters. The white settlement at the falls used to be known as Dogtown (see Skaha Lake).

Source: Akrigg, Helen B. and Akrigg, G.P.V; "British Columbia Place Names"; Sono Nis Press, Victoria 1986 /or University of British Columbia Press 1997, pp. 197.

Oa-ka-na-kane, Big Heads in Mountains ("Indian Names," prepared by Mr. Frank Buckland, Kelowna, B.C., from information obtained from several independent Indian Sources).

Source: BC place name cards & correspondence, and/or research by BC Chief Geographer & Geographical Names Office staff, file P.2.53.