From the bridge of their charter boat High Class Hooker, Susanna Pope and her husband can look out at the sparkling 65-degree saltwater off Key West, Florida, and envision customers fishing for marlin, wahoo and mahi mahi.
Where will they take the tourists today? What fish will be biting? Will the blue skies and calm seas hold? And what the heck should they be calling the water they're fishing in?
A year ago, PresidentDonald Trump'sedict to rename the Gulf of Mexicoformally took effect, and the United States abruptly ‒ legally, anyway ‒ began referring to it as the Gulf of America.
Along the gulf coast
But old habits do indeed die hard, and a USA TODAY Network survey of communities along the coastline – from Florida's Key West, Destin and Panama City to Dulac, Louisiana, and Corpus Christi, Texas – found there's little agreement about what, exactly, people are calling the body of water they live next to. In many cases, locals just call it the same thing they've always called it.
"Down here, we just refer to it as the Gulf," Susanna Pope, 44, said. "It's like saying you're going into town. You don't have to say Key West. You just say town."
What's it called in real life?
In Corpus Christi, a vacationing Jeremiah Orta, 22, said he's only heard people who are being "edgy" online use the new name: "I don't think in real life I've ever heard anyone say Gulf of America."
Although these coastal communities are home to some of Trump's strongest supporters, few people said they simply fell in line behind the president's declaration. Many locals interviewed by the USA TODAY Network declined to speak publicly, citing concerns about potential political retribution if they were quoted picking one name over the other.
Place-naming experts say it's common for new names to take a long time to stick, particularly if the renaming was done abruptly and without public discussion.
In Sarasota County, Florida, Lueanne Wood, who has been living on the Gulf for the past 41 years, says she sticks to tradition.
"As someone in the real estate industry, most of the people that want to move here are older and it can get confusing to call it anything other than what they've heard their whole lives, the Gulf of Mexico," she said. "Everyone in my life and almost everyone I know calls it the Gulf of Mexico, that's the only name for it."
On Marco Island in Florida, Michigan tourist Annette Myers collected shells from what she called the Gulf of Mexico. "This is always going to be the Gulf of Mexico to me," she said.
In Dulac, shrimp boat Capt. Jared Theriot said he's not inclined to consider using the new name. More important to him, he said, was quickly unloading 318 100-pound boxes of frozen shrimp so he could get back onto the water while the fishing remained good.
"I really don't give a f--- what they call it," he said. "It'll always be the Gulf of Mexico to me."
Some take pride in the 'Gulf of America' name
In Destin, Realtor Mary Anne Windes said most people just say the "Gulf," but aboard her husband's charter fishing boat Sunrise, it's most definitely the Gulf of America.
"We've got the Gulf of America [flag] flying on our boat," Windes said, and they wear Gulf of America T-shirts. "It's absolutely the Gulf of America."
The company's Facebook page, however, advertises charter fishing trips on the Gulf of Mexico.
In Panama City, Florida, Iowa tourist Jim Nelson said it's the Gulf of America as far as he's concerned. Trump changed the name, and Nelson feels it's justified.
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"There's a lot more coastline, or beach line, for the United States than there is Mexico," Nelson said.
Why the name change?
In renaming the Gulf, 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 hoped it would bring new attention to the important body of water.
But critics noted Trump's decision had more than a whiff of colonial imperialism, where White conquerors renamed places to reflect their worldview – and minimize those of people who called it something else.
"As my administration restores American pride in the history of American greatness, it is fitting and appropriate for our great nation to come together and commemorate this momentous occasion and the renaming of the Gulf of America," Trump said in declaring Feb. 9, 2025, as "Gulf of America Day."
In Fort Myers Beach, Florida, sailboat-dwelling Ian Wylie said he's pleased the president renamed the place he calls home.
"I think people refuse to accept that the name has changed for several different reasons ‒ some political, some not … but I'm actually proud that we have a gulf now named after us," said Wylie, who rents beach chairs to tourists.
What's in a name?
Piloting a boat running supplies to an under-construction bridge at the south end of Fort Myers Beach, Mike "Popeye" Dearden says not only does the name change make sense, but it's part of a human tendency to change geographical names throughout history. He said he thinks opposition to the change comes from people disliking Trump, not the name itself.
"Did you know the Gulf has enjoyed nine official names in its history? Gulf of Mexico may have been the longest, but it's had nine in its history. … They change the maps and get over it," the self-described history buff and trivia geek said. "William Shakespeare said, 'What's in a name?'"
But what is in name? Plenty, said place-naming expert Derek H. Alderman, a chancellor's professor at the University of Tennessee. It's easy to dismiss the Gulf name change as a stunt, Alderman said, but Trump's decision served far deeper purposes than you might at first think.
First, he said, it was an early shot at Mexico, a longtime Trump target. Second, Trump has long understood the power in branding and how names shape perception. And third, it allowed the president to set out ‒ very early in his term ‒ the kind of muscular, go-it-alone approach we've seen unfold over the past year, Alderman said.
"The president recognizes the power of names, the power of brands. And he's extended that in a geopolitical sense, applied some of that same logic to the geopolitical realm," he said. "He was not simply changing the name. He was actually enacting a different worldview that said we're going to be signaling in a nationalistic, almost imperialistic way, America is absolutely first and it's all about American interests."
Alderman, who served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names during the Biden administration, said he wonders what impact the name change will have on high school students learning about geography, history and social studies.
For generations, America's borders have remained unchanged, but Trump has said he wants to expand the country's boundaries. Naming and claiming the Gulf is a step in that process, Alderman said.
"When you rename the Gulf, you're taking about extending territory in a symbolic sense," he said. "This idea that you simply and in a unilateral way rename a place, claim it, that is a pretty old process that's been going on since the days of colonializations. … That worldview will ripple across classrooms and affect how students' worldviews form."
Aboard the Louisiana-based shrimp boat Ensliegh, Capt. Easton Rodrigue said that no matter what people call the Gulf, he just wishes more Americans would buy from shrimpers like him, instead of buying cheaper imported shrimp often farmed under unhealthy and dangerous conditions internationally.
"They have the guys who call it the Gulf of America, but it's not changin' nothin cuz they still buyin' imports," he said.
Contributing: Colin Campo, Houma Courier-Thibodaux 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 Orsburn, Panama City News Herald; Tina Harbuck,The Destin Log
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Trump renamed this body of water. But what do people really call it?
