The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans Are Not Trump’s to Rename

Donald Trump has floated attaching his own name to a major ocean, and three place-name scholars are urging other nations to reject the idea. At an Oct. 10 rally in Clarksville, Tennessee, Trump suggested that either the Atlantic or the Pacific could become "Trump Ocean" or the "Ocean of the Americas." At an Oct. 21 rally in South Carolina, Trump said he had asked Google chief executive Sundar Pichai to relabel the Atlantic on Google Maps, and that Pichai declined. Trump said he would probably drop the matter. Google has issued no formal statement, according to Time.

Reuben Rose-Redwood, Derek Alderman and Frédéric Giraut call this pattern toponymic narcissism. They note that Trump has already set his sights on the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, both of which carry Indigenous names, and that the Atlantic's name comes from a Greek phrase linked to the myth of Atlas.

Working with experts abroad, the scholars wrote an open letter proposing five principles: place names are shared heritage; changes require public participation; names should not claim superiority or ownership; living people generally should not be honored; and shared features should not be renamed unilaterally.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Time’s reporting. Read the full story at Time →