Susanna Pope and her husband sit on the bridge of their High Class Hooker charter boat, looking out at the sparkling 65-degree water near Key West, Fla., and imagining customers fishing for marlin, mackerel and wahoo.
Where will they take tourists today? What fish bites the hook? Can blue skies and calm seas continue? What on earth are they supposed to call the water they fish in?
A year ago, President Donald Trump’s edict renaming the Gulf of Mexico became official, and the United States suddenly — legally, anyway — began referring to it as the Gulf of America. In coastal areas like Key West, Fort Myers, Naples, and others, reactions have been mixed.
But old habits die hard, and a USA TODAY Network survey of communities along the coastline — from Key West, Destin and Panama City, Florida, to Du Lac, Louisiana, and Corpus Christi, Texas — found little agreement on what exactly people call the nearby bodies of water where they live. In many cases, locals just call it what they’ve always called it.
“Here we just call it the bay,” said Susanna Pope, 44. “It’s like saying you’re coming into town. You don’t have to say Key West. You just say town.”
Ian Wylie, who lives on a sailboat in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, said he’s glad the president is renaming the place he calls home.
“I think there are a few different reasons why people are resisting the name change – some political, some not… but I’m actually proud that we now have a bay named after us,” said Wylie, who rents out beach umbrellas and chairs to visitors.
What’s in the name?
Mike “Popeye” Dearden, who was piloting a boat delivering supplies to a bridge under construction at the south end of Fort Myers Beach, said the renaming not only makes sense but is part of a historical trend in human history to change place names. He said he believed the objection to the change was people’s dislike of 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… and they changed the map and got over it,” said the self-proclaimed history buff and trivia geek. “William Shakespeare said, ‘What’s in a name?'”
What is it called in real life?
In Corpus Christi, 22-year-old Jeremiah Orta, who was on vacation, said he only heard the new name used by “edgy” people online: “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say Gulf of America in real life.”
While these coastal communities are home to some of Trump’s staunchest supporters, few say they simply support the president’s statements. Many locals interviewed by USA TODAY Network declined to speak on the record, citing concerns about possible political reprisal if they were cited by one name instead of another.
Clouds cover the Gulf of Mexico in the afternoon in this 2023 photo taken near Fort Myers Beach, Florida.
Top names experts say it’s common for new names to take a long time to be retained, especially if they are renamed suddenly without public discussion.
In Sarasota County, Lueanne Wood, who has lived in the Bay Area for 41 years, said she holds on to tradition.
“Being in the real estate industry, most people who want to move here are older, and other than what they’ve heard their whole life about the Gulf of Mexico, it can be confusing,” she said. “Everyone in my life, almost everyone I know, calls it the Gulf of Mexico, that’s the only name for it.”
On Marco Island, Michigan tourist Annette Myers collects shells from what she calls the Gulf of Mexico. “For me, it will always be the Gulf of Mexico,” she said.
Captain Jared Theriot said from the deck of his ship, the Captain Beb, on February 3 that he would always consider the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico. Jared Theriot unloads shrimp at David Chauvin’s Seafood.
In Dulac, Louisiana, shrimp boat captain Jared Theriot said he doesn’t plan to consider a new name. He said it was more important to him to quickly unload the 318 100-pound boxes of frozen shrimp so he could get back to the surface in good fishing conditions.
“I really don’t care what they call it,” he said. “To me, the Gulf of Mexico will always be the Gulf of Mexico.”
Some people are proud of the name “Gulf of America”
In Destin, real estate agent Mary Anne Windes said most people just say “the bay,” but on her husband’s charter fishing boat, the Sunrise, it’s definitely the Gulf of America.
“We have the Gulf of America [flag] “Flying on our boat,” said Winders, who was wearing an American Gulf T-shirt. “This is definitely the Gulf of America.”
However, the company’s Facebook page advertises charter fishing trips in the Gulf of Mexico.
In Panama City, Florida, Iowa tourist Jim Nelson said his concern was the Gulf of America. Trump changed his name, which Nielsen thought was justified.
“The United States has a lot more coastline or beach lines than Mexico does,” Nelson said.
Why the name change?
In renaming the bay, Trump said the new name would better reflect the water’s important role in fishing, shipping and oil and gas extraction. Supporters of the change say they hope it will bring renewed attention to the important body of water.
But critics point out that Trump’s decision smacks of more than colonial imperialism, in which white conquerors rename places to reflect their worldview and minimize the worldview of those who call it something else.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as Air Force One flies over the Gulf of Mexico on its way to the Super Bowl in New Orleans on February 9, 2025, after signing a proclamation renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
In proclaiming February 9, 2025, “America’s Gulf Day,” Trump said, “As my administration restores American pride in America’s great history, it is fitting and appropriate that our great nation comes together to commemorate this momentous occasion and the renaming of the Gulf of America.”
But what in name? A lot, said Derek H. Alderman, president’s professor at the University of Tennessee and an expert on place names. Alderman said it would be easy to dismiss the Gulf renaming as a gimmick, but Trump’s decision has a deeper purpose than you might first think.
First, he said, it was an early attempt to target Mexico, a long-term target of Trump’s. Second, Trump understood early on the power of brands and how names shape perceptions. Third, it allows the president to take the kind of tough, go-it-alone approach early in his term that we’ve seen over the past year, Alderman said.
“The president recognizes the power of names, the power of brands. He extends that in a geopolitical sense, applying some of the same logic to the geopolitical realm,” he said. “He’s not just changing the name. He’s actually enacting a different worldview, which is that we’re going to signal in a nationalistic, almost imperialistic way that America is absolutely first and it’s all about American interests.”
Alderman, who served on the federal Geographic Names Coordination Advisory Committee during the Biden administration, said he wonders what impact the name change will have on high school students learning geography, history and social studies.
America’s borders have remained unchanged for generations, but Trump has said he wants to expand the country’s borders. Alderman said naming and claiming the bay is one step in that process.
On February 3, Capt. Easton Rodrigue anchored his vessel, the Ensliegh, after unloading shrimp at David Chauvin’s Seafood in Dulac.
“When you rename a bay, you’re symbolically expanding territory,” he said. “This idea of simply renaming a place in a unilateral way, claiming that this is a fairly ancient process that has been going on since colonial times… is a worldview that will ripple through the classroom and influence the formation of students’ worldviews.”
Aboard the Ensley shrimp boat in Louisiana, Capt. Easton Rodrigue said that no matter what people call the bay, he just wants more Americans to buy shrimp from shrimpers like him instead of cheaper imported shrimp that are often farmed in unhealthy and dangerous conditions internationally.
“Some of them call it the Gulf of America, but that doesn’t change anything because they still buy imports,” he said.
Contributed by: Colin Campo, Houma Courier-Thibandeau Daily Comet; Olivia Garrett, Corpus Christi Caller-Times; Francesca Abarca, Sarasota Herald-Tribune; Taylor Osborne, Panama City Press-Herald; Tina Haback, Destin Log
This article originally appeared in the Fort Myers Press: Trump changes the name of the Gulf of Mexico. Has the Gulf of America caught on?
