What's in a name? Plenty, when that name is 'Trump'

President Donald Trump's recent joking suggestion that he'd re-rename the Gulf of Mexico to honor himself 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.

Societies have always used street and place names to signal values, from the towns called Hope, to Martin Luther King Jr. and Ronald Reagan boulevards, the Robert F. Kennedy stadium and even the nation's capital itself: Washington, named in 1791 to honor the nation's then president. The colony of Jamestown honored Britain's King James I, and Louisiana was named after King Louis XIV of France.

But the current president's willingness to push his own personal brand ‒ and the willingness of others to help him do it ‒ stands out in modern history, according to people who study naming.

"It's usually best practice to wait until somebody dies," said Reuben Rose-Redwood, a geography professor at Canada's University of Victoria and international expert in how place names shape perception. "I've never seen this kind of scale to rename places after a living person in the way we are seeing it over President Trump. The scale of it is unprecedented in modern times."

A businessman's brand: 'Trump'

History is replete with examples of leaders naming communities, streets or buildings in their honor, including Soviet leaders Stalin and Lenin who gave us Stalingrad and Leningrad. Hitler named multiple places in Berlin for himself, although his name was scrubbed from the city at the end of World War II.

"The rise and falls of regimes are often accompanied by name changes," Rose-Redwood said. "What I'm seeing in the United States is this combination of crass commercialization and a cult of personality around an authoritarian leader … who treats the government and its assets as the personal property of the president himself."

Rose-Redwood said there's a phrase for the concept: "toponymic narcissism."

Trump has long used his name as the cornerstone of his real estate empire's branding, giving the world Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump University and the Trump Taj Mahal Casino. There's also Trump Mobile phones, the Trump Gold Card for wealthy immigrants, and the cryptocurrency $Trump coin.

In his second term, Trump has also added his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and to the United States Institute of Peace. ESPN reported that Trump has also been pushing the Washington Commanders football team to name their new stadium in his honor.

On Jan. 20, as he marked the end of his first year back in office, Trump said he'd rejected naming the Gulf after himself, but mused aloud about the idea: "The Gulf of Trump, that does have a good ring, though. Maybe we could do that ‒ it's not too late."

Paying tribute to Trump

Many of Trump's supporters have backed efforts to name things after him:

• In Kentucky, state lawmakers are considering a plan to rename 12 miles of Kentucky Route 18 between Florence to Rabbit Hash in Boone County in the president's honor.
• In Florida, officials in December renamed a 4-mile stretch of Southern Boulevard near the president's Mar-A-Lago golf club to the "President Donald J. Trump Boulevard."
• In Ohio, Republican lawmakers have proposed naming a 2-mile stretch of Interstate 70 in Columbus as the "President Donald Trump Freedom Highway."
• Republicans in Congress have proposed renaming Washington Dulles International Airport as the "Donald J. Trump International Airport."

In each of those cases, the sponsors said Trump deserves recognition for his success on behalf of the American people.

"We have entered the golden age of America largely thanks to President Trump's leadership," Rep. Addison McDowell, a North Carolina Republican said in announcing the Dulles renaming plan. "It is only right that the two airports servicing our nation's capital are duly honored and respected by two of the best presidents to have the honor of serving our great nation."

Place-naming expert Derek H. Alderman, a chancellor's professor at the University of Tennessee, said the push to name places for Trump evokes the ancient practice of "paying tribute" in which members of a certain class attempt to ingratiate themselves into a powerful lord's good graces.

"That's absolutely what we're seeing in terms of some of this naming," said Alderman, who served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names during the Biden administration.

Taking back the narrative

Alderman said there's a larger picture, too: The desire by some conservatives to "take back" the process by which places are named or renamed.

For instance, the Biden-era committee on which Alderman served was assembled to help rename geographic features with names considered offensive by Native Americans, similarly to how Congress in 2020 ordered the renaming of about a dozen Army bases honoring Confederate military leaders.

While the base-renaming process took years, and included thousands of hours of public testimony and community engagement, Trump upon taking office in 2025, ordered them changed back to their originals.

Trump also ordered that Denali, the nation's tallest mountain, be once again referred to as Mount McKinley. President Obama had changed the name in 2015 following decades of requests from Alaska officials, some of whom objected to Trump changing the name back last year.

Like the "Gulf of America," Trump called for Denali's name to be changed without seeking substantive public input.

Paying tribute, stroking ego and rewriting history

Alderman said MAGA supporters appear to have decided that naming things for Trump is a way to solve two problems at once.

"People know that paying tribute to President Trump is a way of keeping him happy, basically stroking his ego. But we are also in the middle of a political realignment by the right to push back on the movement toward more progressive symbols," Alderman said. "This is their attempt to counter that reform movement."

Added Rose-Redwood: "The irony here is that Trump himself was very much against removing Confederate place names and statues over this idea of erasing history, but at the same time renaming the Gulf of Mexico is somehow not erasing history."

Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, has proposed a federal law that would ban naming federal buildings after sitting presidents.

Sanders' proposal, called the "Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego Act," would retroactively apply to any federal facilities that have already been tagged with Trump's name. Sanders said naming buildings after current leaders evokes authoritarian regimes from history.

"For Trump to put his name on federal buildings is arrogant and it is illegal," Sanders said in a statement. "We must put an end to this narcissism ‒ and that’s what this bill does."