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Teresa Gergen wrote: I'm afraid I have no knowledge of club lists in the Pacific NW or in the Eastern US.

Well... consider yourself lucky! The Pacific NW folks drink way too much Starbucks, while the Eastern US folks just drink way too much. --

I do completely agree with Teresa's philosophy of all peaks are good peaks, even the low prominence ones, although I lack her ability to climb each and every one. The high prominence ones though do have a special place in my heart. Going after the 5,000' Ultra Prominence peak list has been an amazing quest. Almost every one has spectacular beauty, especially the ones in Montana.

If you look at the unnamed peaks in Oregon, you will immediately see why nobody has named most of the minor bumps in regions with far more notable mountains. Starbucks is way out of fashion in the Pacific NW now, and the people in the East don't drink anywhere near as much as the people stuck in North Dakota in winter.

Only being very familiar with CO, I'd guess it has more to do with elevation. The lower in elevation you go, the fewer named peaks, at least maybe as a percentage of the peaks in that elevation range. CO has some seriously difficult lower unnamed ranked peaks in the western half of the state.

One reason why the highest peaks in Colorado are named is because most of them are near historic mining areas and were named long ago. I believe that this is the #1 reason that most of the high Colorado peaks are named, though of course it isn't the only reason.

Using Colorado's neighboring state Utah, for example, most of the higher peaks aren't named, while most of them near populated areas are. In this case, elevation has no bearing on whether or not the peaks are named.

In Utah, the 26 of the highest mountains in Utah are in the Uinta Mountains. Only 9 have official names. The Uinta Mountains however, don't have any many historic mining areas (I only know of a few prospects on the far edge of the range) and many of the peaks aren't even visible from any roads. It isn't surprising that they never had official names.