Toponymic narcissism refers to people who are obsessed with attaching their own names to things. Trump’s name now seems to be everywhere.
‘Donald J. Trump Presidential Boulevard’ officially unveiled in Florida
A four-mile road leading to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, is now named after the president.
President Donald Trump’s recent tongue-in-cheek proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico in his honor highlights a growing trend. The president and his supporters envision putting his name on everything from phones to performing arts centers, stadiums, airports, roads, whiskey glasses and bathrobes.
From a town called Hope, to the boulevards of Martin Luther King Jr. and Ronald Reagan, to Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, to the nation’s capital, Washington itself, which was named in honor of then-president in 1791, societies have always used the names of streets and places to convey values. The colony of Jamestown was named in honor of King James I of England, and Louisiana was named after King Louis XIV of France.
But the current president’s willingness to promote his personal brand, and the willingness of others to support it, stands out in modern history, according to people who study naming.
“Typically, best practice is to wait until someone dies,” says Reuben Rose Redwood, a professor of geography at the University of Victoria in Canada and an international expert on how place names shape perceptions. “We’ve never seen anything like the scale of renaming places after living people, as we’re seeing with President Trump. It’s unprecedented in modern times.”
Businessman’s brand “Trump”
History is full of examples of leaders naming communities, streets, and buildings in their honor, including Soviet leaders Stalin and Lenin, who gave us Stalingrad and Leningrad. Hitler named several places in Berlin after himself, but at the end of World War II his name was erased from the city.
“The rise and fall of regimes is often accompanied by name changes,” Rose-Redwood said. “What I see in the United States is a combination of gross commercialization and a cult of personality centered around an authoritarian leader who treats the government and its assets as the president’s own personal property.”
Rose-Redwood said there is a term to describe this concept: “homonymous narcissism.”
Trump has long used his name as the cornerstone of the branding of his real estate empire, giving the world Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump University and the Trump Taj Mahal Casino. There are also Trump cell phones, Trump gold cards for wealthy immigrants, and the $Trump coin cryptocurrency.
In his second term, President Trump also added his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the United States Institute of Peace. ESPN reported that President Trump is encouraging the Washington Commanders football team to name their new stadium after him.
On January 20, at the end of his first year in office, Trump said he refused to name the bay after himself, but mused aloud about the idea, saying, “Trump Bay, it sure sounds nice. Maybe we can, but it’s not too late.”
In honor of Trump
Many Trump supporters support efforts to name things after him.
- In Kentucky, the state Legislature is considering a plan to rename 12 miles of Kentucky Route 18 from Florence to Rabbit Hash in Boone in honor of the president.
- In December, officials in Florida renamed a four-mile stretch of Southern Boulevard near the president’s Mar-a-Lago golf club as “President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.”
- In Ohio, Republican lawmakers are proposing to name a two-mile stretch of Interstate 70 in Columbus the “President Donald Trump Freedom Highway.”
- Congressional Republicans are proposing to rename Washington Dulles International Airport, which already accommodates one president, the Donald J. Trump International Airport. The capital’s other airport is named in honor of both Washington and President Ronald Reagan.
In each case, sponsors argued that Mr. Trump deserves to be recognized for his successes on behalf of the American people.
“We have entered a golden age in America thanks in large part to President Trump’s leadership,” Rep. Addison McDowell, Republican of North Carolina, said in announcing plans to rename Dulles. “It is only right that the two airports that serve our nation’s capital are rightly honored and respected by two of the greatest presidents who have had the honor of serving our great nation.”
Derek H. Alderman, a place-naming expert and Chancellor’s Professor at the University of Tennessee, said President Trump’s place-naming push is reminiscent of the ancient practice of “paying tribute,” in which certain classes of people seek to gain favor with a powerful monarch.
“That’s definitely what we’re looking at with some of this naming,” said Alderman, who served on the federal advisory committee on place name reconciliation in the Biden administration.
take back the story
The councilman said there are bigger issues as well. This is said to be the desire of some conservatives to “take back” the process of naming and renaming places.
For example, a Biden administration-era commission that the city council member served on was assembled to help change geographic names, including those considered offensive by Native Americans, similar to when Congress ordered the renaming of about a dozen Army bases in honor of Confederate military leaders in 2020.
The base renaming process took years and included thousands of hours of public testimony and community engagement, but upon taking office in 2025, President Trump ordered the bases to be renamed back to their original names.
President Trump also ordered Denali, the nation’s highest mountain, to be called Mount McKinley again. President Obama changed the name in 2015 after decades of requests from Alaska state officials, some of whom objected to President Trump changing the name last year.
As with the Gulf of America, President Trump called for Denali’s name to be changed without seeking substantial public input.
Show your respect, stroke your ego, and rewrite history.
The councilman said MAGA supporters seemed to have decided that naming things for Trump was a way to solve two problems at once.
“People know that honoring President Trump is a way to keep him happy and basically feeds his ego. But we’re also in the midst of a political realignment by the right that is pushing back on the movement toward more progressive symbols,” the councilman said. “This is their attempt to counter that reform movement.”
Rose Redwood added: “The irony here is that this idea of erasing history, Trump himself was very opposed to removing Confederate place names and statues, but at the same time renaming the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t somehow erase history.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, is proposing federal legislation that would ban federal buildings from being named after sitting presidents.
Sanders’ proposal, called the “Stop Executive Name Changes for Vanity and Ego Act,” would apply retroactively to federal facilities that already bear Trump’s name. Sanders said naming a building after a current leader is reminiscent of authoritarian regimes in history.
“It is arrogant and illegal for Mr. Trump to put his name on a federal building,” Sanders said in a statement. “We have to put an end to this narcissism. That’s what this bill is about.”
