It got the name in the 16th century, it’s internationally accepted, but one clown thinks he has the authority to change it.
Map of the Gulf of Mexico from 1718
Unfortunately, Google is happy to cave on this issue.
Google said Monday it will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” in Google Maps after the Trump administration updates its “official government sources.”
The company also said it will start using the name “Mount McKinley” for the mountain in Alaska currently called Denali.
I think someone told Trump that McKinley oversaw the last surge of American territorial expansion, and he thinks he can make a name for himself by seizing real estate. Maybe someone should mention to him the end of McKinley’s story? I don’t think he read it to the end.
It clearly says “Bay of Mexico”. Not gulf. Checkmate!
I expect Google maps is only doing that for the American English version. They’ve done a lot more at the request of the Chinese government.
Anyway, that’s probably one of the least intrusive of Trump’s policies so I think I’ll survive. I’ll just call it the Gulf of MAGA until things resolve. “Freedom fries” didn’t last either.
As far as I can determine, Trump has the authority to rename anything in the USA at the level of the Federal government.
Anyone else is free to call the Gulf of Mexico whatever they want. Including the Gulf of Mexico.
Anyone one else in the world can still call the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico. American jurisdiction ends at the borders of the USA.
Which, or course, will just give Trump one more unhinged, pointless, stupid, thing to rant about, “The rest of the world didn’t cave to me, I mean America, and change the name!!”
Perhaps he should do it other way round: Change to United States of Mexico?
I will demand from Google that the falsely named “USA” will be changed to the correct name of Vinland”!
i can’t wait until he invades Greenland and starts building golf courses and hotels on the ice pack.
/s
strangerinastrangeland@6,
“Vinland” was in what is now Canada. and “Turtle Island” would acknowledge at least some of the earlier inhabitants.
submoron @ 5:
Funny you would mention that. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum joked about renaming the entire continent to “América Mexicana”. No idea why she’s dragging Canada into Trump’s stupidity though. He would have clearly lost if Canadians voted.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know who does have the authority to name international bodies of water? If, for some reason, the name of the Pacific Ocean were to be changed, is there some international agency that has that authority? Or is this simply a case of it’s called the Pacific because it’s always been called the Pacific?
I’d be willing to settle for something like “Gulf of Native America”.
Next up: Renaming New Mexico to “West Texas”.
(Because “South Colorado” or “East Arizona” isn’t cruel enough)
HidariMak @9
A very sensible lady Ms Sheinbaum!
Can I throw in another confusion? America named after the Welsh Bristol merchant Richard Ap Meryk or Richard Amerike who financed Cabot. Coat of arms consisted of stars and stripes! The connection’s almost certainly just coincidence but convince Trump he’s got Welsh ancestry and there’d be real fun!
Just downloaded Ecosia and I’m thinking about downloading Brave. Gonna look at cutting back on my Google use.
Wait till they find out who America is named after…
freeline@10: I don’t think there is an internationally agreed naming scheme, the baltic sea for example is Ostsee (eastern sea) in German.
I’d pay good money to see the Canadian or Mexican governments trolling Trump by officially calling the USA south Canada or North Mexico
@^16 mordred
And it’s the “Western Sea” (Läänemeri) in Finnish.
In Estonian I mean. Dunno why I had that brain fart.
G00GLE has always proven itself to be a thieving, corrupt, spyware, criminal corporation. We never have and never will grant it or its products any gain from us. I hate and will never contribute to ANY of these websites that now have a big intrusive pop-up saying ‘log in with G00GLE’.
I think, if it is not called the gulf of mexico, we should start labeling and calling it the ‘cesspool of trump’!
I saw this last night.
I didn’t believe it. Thought it was fake because it was so stupid.
It never happened though. Trump is lying.
The military didn’t invade California and turn the water on.
California’s water doesn’t even come from the Pacific Northwest either.
A lot of water comes from Northern California down the Sacramento river and then gets pumped to southern California.
And, this water has zero to do with fighting fires in Los Angeles.
The water from the central valley canal goes to irrigate farmland.
@21 raven wrote: Trump is lying.
The military didn’t invade California and turn the water on.
I reply: Thank you, Raven, you are absolutely correct. There are many responsible articles that say that, too. It was fed. employees that work in california that restarted pumps on the big storage pool that was down for maintenance for a few weeks, not tRUMPS military! This proves my point about how tRUMP can’t go for more than one sentence without lying!
While he’s at it, why not name the seventh planet after himself, or better yet, name himself after the seventh planet?
;-)
@antaresrichard #23:
“President Donald J Trump is proud to declare that the seventh planet has gracefully accepted UNLIKE DENMARK!!! to belong to the great United States, and I heretofore henceforth rename it as TRUMPANUS, the second-bigliest planet in the Solar Star System after the free Earth. Trumpanus is rotated by Miranda, that lovely mooning satellite, and the beautiful Titania, who I am renaming MELANIA, now that the First Lady has transferred her bigly growing cryptocoin to me. I am sending the SPACE FORCE to occupy Miranda, who will welcome them with open legs (they let you do that when you’re a celebrity). DOG BLEES THE USA!”
I hereby declare that the site formerly known as Mar-a-Lago shall henceforth be called Lair of the Orange Lardo.
Pass it on.
@23 Rich Woods
spectacular!
[Uranus was the father of the Titans; he was the sky-god that fertilised Gaia]
Autobot Silverwynde @ 14:
Just a heads up, Brave is run by a former (and very short term) CEO of Mozilla who left (he implies that he was pushed out) because of the backlash to his homophobia. He donated to Prop 8, and has apparently also engaged in COVID denial (masks/”lockdowns” don’t work type of stuff, from what I gather). It also has some cryptocurrency connections, though I don’t know much about that. There was also another controversy in which they “accidentally” appended referers to links so they would get paid for “sending” you to a site. Otherwise, during my brief use of it, it was a really good browser. Do with this info what you will.
I quit using Brave when I learned about the CEO (incidentally, right around the time the crypto stuff was being added), seeing as I’m a queer guy and would rather not support him, thanks. I ended up with Vivaldi. It’s essentially an extremely customizable UI on top of Chromium (the base for Chrome, but without all the Google tracking stuff; Brave is also based on it). It can take some time to set up how you want it, as there are tons of options, but once you do it’s pretty good. Near as I can tell, the CEO of Vivaldi (who is a former CEO of Opera) doesn’t have any major controversies, though there are some signs that he might be a free speech absolutist. Again, do with that as you will.
All of these songs will have to be changed: https://www.lyrics.com/lyrics/gulf%20of%20mexico#google_vignette
At some point he’ll rename the country to Trump’s United States of America, the country will look as shit and tacky as his shitty, tacky hotels.
@ ^ gijoel : you think it doesn’t already?
@ ^ On reflection I guess not yet and that’s a bit unfiar to the good Americans who sadly seem to now be a minority albeit a slight one.
@20. shermanj : “I think, if it is not called the gulf of mexico, we should start labeling and calling it the ‘cesspool of trump’!”
How about calling it the Gulf of Cuba? After all most of that island is borders that area?
@27. John Morales & #23. antaresrichard : Uranus has already had a name change- it was first definitley seen and charted as a star called 34 Tauri by John Flamsteed in 1690. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Discovery )
Also when he fist saw it Willliam Herschel initally thought it was a comet – so Uranus been thought to be a star, a comet and finally a planet! It is the only planet known by its Greek rather than Roman diety name albeit they latinised the spelling and it should really be called Ouranos.
PS. Oh and Herschel wanted to name it George or at least George’s Star or Planet after his King – George III. He was over-ruled.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#Name )
@32 SteveoR wrote: How about calling it the Gulf of Cuba?
I reply: That’s not a bad idea. But, it is politically very controversial, since the Untied States (intentional spelling) has been beating the crap out of Cuba for decades over their soviet missile incident in the early 1960s and the fact that our imbecilic government still labels it as an ‘evil communist’ power. It’s sad. All the useless embargoes have left Cuba impoverished.
tRUMP is all ass, mostly crass and absolutely no class. The photo of him in the white house beaming over how he had piles of hamberders and fries for some important visitors still sticks in my mind. That’s why I still think my renaming it the ‘cesspool of trump’ is more appropriate
(Some thoughts I just posted in the Infinite Thread)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/28/google-maps-will-rename-gulf-of-mexico-as-gulf-of-america-in-us
The new name alone is supposed to soon show up for Google Maps users in the US, while a dual name will show everywhere else, except Mexico (and possibly Cuba?), where the old name alone is shown. This policy is apparently meant to reflect the idea that the naming of the water body (presumably made sensitive by different political connotations of the names) is now contested between the surrounding nations. As I see it, this is a central part of what Trump and the MAGAhats want to gent out of the whole issue – starting a new geopolitical dispute just for the sake of being abrasive to foreigners.
It’s pretty clear that this policy is only meant to be consistently applied in cases where someone sues or otherwise pressures or threatens to pressure Google. The names Sea of Japan and Persian Gulf were established conventions in English-language geographical nomenclature, so there is a good reason to treat them as the default, at least for English-language interfaces outside of South Korea and Iran. They are indeed still treated as the primary/default name, but since South Korea and Iran complained, an alternative English name form is now shown in parentheses. As for the Gulf of Mexico, there is no local US tradition for the alternative name, and no one has complained on this issue yet, but you can bet someone influential would soon complain if Google didn’t comply in advance.
(The name of Myanmar/Burma is also treated as contested – I think that’s between different political factions within the country that have varying levels of recognition abroad?)
The above apparently also applies to other languages that traditionally use directly translated equivalents of Sea of Japan and Persian Gulf. I personally usually use the Finnish-language interface when browsing Google Maps, if only because my laptop/OS has Finnish set as the default language. Likewise, for Gulf of Mexico, it presumably won’t matter whether you browse the map in English, Spanish or some other language. Only your IP location will make the difference.
For names that aren’t openly contested, anything goes and convention generally rules. For example, the Baltic Sea is called some variant of “Baltic Sea” in Baltic and Slavic languages, “Eastern Sea” in several Germanic languages plus Finnish and “Western Sea” in Estonian. That’s just counting the official or dominant languages in surrounding countries, analogous to English in the US and Spanish in the neighboring countries – presumably nobody cares what the Gulf of Mexico is called in local indigenous languages. Only one name form is presented in both English and Finnish map interfaces.
Curiously, while the names in English and Finnish map interfaces (at least here in Finland) are usually presented only in Latin alphabet form (if such is available), localities in Russia are named in both Cyrillic and Latin form, without putting either in parentheses. The former is the standard Russian-language form. For English maps, the Latin form is usually the official latinized Russian form, except for some names that have commonly used English forms (such as the White Sea, as a direct translation for Beloye More). In Finnish language, numerous localities of northwestern Russia have more or less commonly used traditional name forms, that often differ from the Latin Russian form, including but not limited to territories ceded by Finland during WWII. These are used by Google Maps in the Finnish-language map interface, though I don’t know how it’d work outside of Finland.
If a browser doesn’t support manifest v2 that will be a dealbreaker for me. You can have my adblocker when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
[NoScript, BB]
Henceforth the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans have been renamed the Western American and Eastern American oceans. Let it be written. Let it be done.
Grab ’em by the Gulf of America. There you have it.
I wonder if King Charles will order Google to rename the states to the south of my home country “The Traitorous Rebellion”. Might his Mudjacy will look favourably upon a petition for the Rebellious Regions to join Canada and get Government Funded Medicare for all?
There is an international authority for naming and defining boundaries: the International Hydrographic Organization.
@42 PZ wrote: There is an international authority for naming and defining boundaries: the International Hydrographic Organization.
I reply: Thanks for the info. That is a good to know for the purposes of education, navigation, etc. However, we must all admit that the maniacs running this country now NEVER consider established systems, no matter how good and useful they are. These imbeciles will always ‘make up their own shit’, throw it at the wall and use it whether it sticks or not.
A sign of just how craven Google is…and stupid. It has just opened itself up to every politically-motivated renaming of places by every expansionist dictatorship on the planet.
As a non-USAican, I wasn’t familiar with that and so for others in same boat, well, he was assassinated :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_William_McKinley
For Whatever Its Worth..
&&&
@35. shermanj : “@32 StevoR wrote: “How about calling it the Gulf of Cuba?”
I reply: That’s not a bad idea. But, it is politically very controversial, since the Untied States (intentional spelling) has been beating the crap out of Cuba for decades..”
Exactly why I suggested it as a bit of shit-stirring against the regressives… The Gulf is, of course, as much Cuban as it is American albiet the USoA has the longer coastline here.
As per PZ: https://www.marineregions.org/gazetteer.php?p=details&id=4288
I think the USA could now be called Trumpania.
(They did elect him, you know)
StevoR, Cuba is an island off America. So, not much diff.
@47. John Morales : I reckon Trumpistan might be a more apt version of that name!
@ 25
Try renaming Mar-a-lago Orchgard. Or name it after, wossname, the creature that stole the silmarils and threw Middle -earth into darkness.
Just to note: the executive order only renames the parts within American jurisdiction, specifically “the U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba”. All the rest is still the Gulf of Mexico. So let’s see if Google gets that right. (Of course they won’t.)
I just looked at a map of Countries in Orwell’s 1984. The entire Americas and Greenland are included in Oceania in this version. Trump sometimes says nice things about the British Isles and he has a pal from South Africa. Is there a danger that he might interfere in Australia to ‘protect them from Eastasia’?
I should have specified the map. https://www.openculture.com/2018/01/a-map-of-george-orwells-1984.html
@50. birgerjohansson : I reckon renaming Mar-e-lago as Pit-of Hell would work pretty well..
@52. submoron : Yes. Sadly.
This is some Democratic People’s Republican of Korea level nonsense.
@54 StevoR
One outstanding difference between Trump and BB is bureaucracy. They’ve an oppressive excess and Trump wants a sort of Gangster-Anarchism
@Robbo #26:
“spectacular!”
Thank you. It’s my only talent.