It’s been a year since President Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. We asked people along the coast what they actually called it.
What’s in the name? Americans will give their opinion on ‘American Gulf’ after 1 year
It’s been a year since President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Has it taken root?
From the bridge of their charter boat, the High Class Hooker, Susannah Pope and her husband can imagine guests fishing for marlin, wahoo or mahi-mahi as they gaze out over the sparkling 65-degree water off the coast of Key West, Florida.
Where will we take tourists today? Which fish will bite? Will the blue skies and calm seas continue? And what on earth should they call the water they’re fishing in?
A year ago, President Donald Trump’s proclamation to rename the Gulf of Mexico officially went into effect, and the United States suddenly started calling it the Gulf of America, legally anyway.
But old habits do die hard, and a USA TODAY Network survey of coastal communities from Florida’s Key West, Destin, and Panama City to Dulac, Louisiana, and Corpus Christi, Texas found that there is little agreement on what exactly people call the bodies of water that live next to them. Locals often call it the same way they’ve always called it.
“Here we just call it the Bay,” said Susannah Pope, 44. “It’s like saying go to town. You don’t have to say Key West, just say town.”
What is it called in real life?
In Corpus Christi, vacationing Jeremiah Orta, 22, said he had only heard “pointy” people online using the new name, adding, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say American Bay in real life.”
These coastal areas are home to some of President Trump’s strongest supporters, but few said they simply went along with the president’s proclamations. Many local residents interviewed by the USA TODAY Network declined to speak publicly, citing concerns that they could face political retaliation if they named either party.
Place name experts say it typically takes a long time for new names to become established, especially when changes are made suddenly and without public debate.
Luann Wood, of Sarasota County, Florida, who has lived on the Gulf Coast for the past 41 years, says she’s all about tradition.
“As someone who is in the real estate industry, most of the people who want to move here are older people, and it can be confusing to call it something other than the Gulf of Mexico, which they’ve heard all their lives,” she says. “Everyone in my life, and just about everyone I know, calls it the Gulf of Mexico, that’s the only name for it.”
On Florida’s Marco Island, Michigan tourist Annette Myers collected shells from what she called the Gulf of Mexico. “This will always be the Gulf of Mexico for me,” she said.
In Dulac, the shrimp boat’s captain, Jared Theriot, said he would not consider using the new name. What was more important to him, he said, was to quickly unload 318 100-pound boxes of frozen shrimp so they could get back to the water while fishing was good.
“I really don’t care what they call it,” he said. “For me, it will forever be the Gulf of Mexico.”
Some people are proud of the name “American Gulf”
Mary Ann Winds, a Destin real estate agent, said most people just say “the bay,” but when she’s on her husband’s charter fishing boat, the Sunrise, it’s definitely American Bay.
“Our boats have the American Gulf (flag) on them,” Winds said, and they wear American Gulf T-shirts. “It’s definitely the Gulf of America.”
However, the company’s Facebook page advertises charter fishing trips in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jim Nelson, a tourist from Panama City, Florida, Iowa, said it’s the Gulf of America to him. Trump changed the name, and Nelson feels it’s justified.
“The United States has much more coastline, or beachline, than Mexico,” Nelson said.
Why does the name change?
In renaming the bay, President Trump said the new name would better reflect the body of water’s important role in fishing, shipping, and oil and gas extraction. Supporters of the change said they hope it will bring new attention to critical waters.
But critics say Trump’s decision has more than a whiff of colonial imperialism, with white conquerors renaming places to reflect their own worldview and disrespecting those who called them by different names.
President Trump proclaimed February 9, 2025 as “American Bay Day,” saying, “As my administration restores American pride in the history of American greatness, it is fitting and appropriate that our great nation come together to commemorate this momentous event and the renaming of American Bay.”
In Fort Myers Beach, Florida, yacht resident Ian Wylie said he was happy the president changed the name of the place he calls home.
“People find it hard to accept the name change, some for political reasons, some not, but I’m actually proud to have a bay named after us,” said Wylie, who rents beach chairs to tourists.
What’s in the name?
Mike “Popeye” Dearden, who operates a boat delivering supplies to a bridge under construction at the south end of Fort Myers Beach, said the name change not only has meaning, but is part of a human tendency to change geographic names throughout history. He said he believes opposition to the change comes from people hating President Trump, not the name itself.
“Did you know that the Gulf of Mexico has had nine official names in its history? The Gulf of Mexico may be the longest, but it’s had nine in its history. … They’re changing the map and getting away with it,” said the self-proclaimed history buff and trivia buff. “William Shakespeare said, ‘What’s in a name?’
But what is a name? “There are a lot of them,” said Derek H. Alderman, a place name expert and chancellor professor at the University of Tennessee. While it’s easy to dismiss Gulf’s name change as a stunt, Alderman said President Trump’s decision served a much deeper purpose than initially thought.
First, he said, this was an early attack on Mexico, a longtime target of President Trump. Second, Trump has long understood the power of branding and how names shape perceptions. And third, Alderman said, it allowed the president to launch very early in his term the kind of forceful, opinionated approach that we’ve been developing over the past year.
“The president recognizes the power of names, the power of brands. And he extended that in a geopolitical sense and applied some of the same logic to the geopolitical realm,” he said. “He wasn’t just changing the name; he was actually enacting a different worldview that he was going to signal in a nationalistic, almost imperialist way, that America was absolutely first and everything was for America’s benefit.”
The alderman, who served on the federal advisory committee on place name reconciliation under the Biden administration, said he wonders how name changes will affect high school students studying geography, history and social studies.
America’s borders have remained the same for generations, but President Trump has said he wants to expand them. Councilors said naming and claiming the bay is a step in that process.
“Renaming the bay means expanding its territory in a symbolic sense,” he said. “The idea of renaming and claiming a place in a simple and unilateral way is a fairly old process that has been going on since the days of colonization. … That worldview ripples throughout the classroom and influences how students’ worldviews are formed.”
Captain Easton Rodrigue, aboard the Louisiana-based shrimping boat Ensley, said he doesn’t care what people call the Gulf, he just wishes more Americans would buy from shrimpers like him instead of buying cheap imported shrimp that are often farmed in unhealthy and dangerous conditions internationally.
“They call this the Gulf of America, but nothing has changed because they are still buying imports,” he said.
Contributor: Colin Campo, Houma Courier-Tibodaux Daily Comet; Olivia Garrett, Corpus Christi Caller Times. J. Kyle Foster, Naples Daily News. Amy Bennett Williams, Fort Myers News-Press, Francesca Abarca, Sarasota Herald Tribune. Tyler Ausburn, Panama City News Herald, Tina Harbach, Destiny Log
