I'm not sure I do think that, I was just trying to (maybe) clarify the question. If it's strictly a name issue, what should this do: ~~~~~ % ./sqlite3 SQLite version 3.33.0 2020-06-11 16:04:10 Enter ".help" for usage hints. Connected to a transient in-memory database. Use ".open FILENAME" to reopen on a persistent database. sqlite> CREATE TABLE t1(x); sqlite> DROP INDEX IF EXISTS t1; sqlite> ~~~~~ I'm not sure what it should do, but it doesn't report an error. The docs for `DROP INDEX` don't explicitly mention the `IF EXISTS` clause, so I can't say what I expect it to do.