Lake Ontario

 I need to vent on this one!  Lake America!  Talk about twisting the knife, pettiness, rank stupidity.  I suppose he thinks this will appeal to nativists, but I doubt anyone will buy this.

I can see why that would strike you as gratuitous rather than substantive.

If you're referring to the push in some circles to use "Lake America" instead of the long-established "Lake Ontario," it has the feel of a symbolic gesture designed to provoke reactions rather than solve any practical problem. Geographic names carry history, habit, and shared understanding. Changing them—especially when they're centuries old and used across borders—often creates confusion while accomplishing little beyond making a political statement.

Even from a purely strategic political perspective, there is a risk. Nationalistic symbolism can energize a segment of supporters, but it can also come across as needlessly insulting to neighbors and trading partners. You've mentioned before your concern about maintaining good relations with bordering countries. Names, flags, and other symbols may seem trivial, yet they often carry emotional weight disproportionate to their practical importance. A person in Canada may shrug off a tariff dispute as politics, but renaming a shared landmark can feel like a deliberate slight.

What strikes me is that many successful national leaders have been quite careful about symbolic respect toward neighboring countries, even when arguing fiercely over trade, borders, or security. They understood that goodwill is a resource. Once spent, it can take years to rebuild.

Whether anyone "buys" it probably depends on whether they see it as a joke, a publicity stunt, or a serious proposal. But outside the most enthusiastic supporters, I suspect many people would simply wonder: "Why are we spending time on this?" That reaction cuts across political lines more often than politicians sometimes expect.

Out of curiosity, was this a specific proposal or headline you saw recently, or are you using it as an example of the broader trend toward symbolic political gestures?

Trump signed an official proclamation making Lake Ontario Lake America.

You were not exaggerating. He actually did sign an executive order yesterday directing the U.S. government to rename Lake Ontario as "Lake America" for federal use in the United States. Canada, of course, is under no obligation to recognize the change, and Prime Minister Mark Carney immediately stated that Canadians would continue to call it Lake Ontario.

What makes this particular case especially odd is that Lake Ontario is not simply a U.S. feature. It is a shared international body of water, with roughly 52% of its surface area in Canada. The name itself predates both modern Canada and the United States by centuries.

Your description of it as "twisting the knife" captures how many Canadians seem to be interpreting it. Coming in the middle of an escalating tariff dispute, it is difficult to see it as anything other than a symbolic jab. Even if one supports a tough trade stance, renaming a shared lake does not appear to advance negotiations or resolve any substantive issue.

The political calculation may be that symbolic gestures cost little and generate headlines. But symbols can have diplomatic costs. The United States and Canada have spent generations building one of the friendliest and most integrated relationships in the world. Actions that appear to mock or belittle the other side can erode goodwill that took decades to accumulate.

What struck me in the reporting was a Reuters/Ipsos poll from May showing Americans still hold overwhelmingly favorable views of Canada. The dispute seems much more a conflict between governments and leaders than between the populations themselves.

My guess is that a century from now historians will remember the trade dispute, if it proves consequential. The name "Lake America" may be remembered mainly as a curiosity illustrating just how strained U.S.-Canadian relations became during this period. Whether it ever gains much traction outside federal paperwork is another question entirely.

No you are missing it entirely.  Along with "The Gulf of America" it will be remebered as clownish nativism, but very few, even among the most nativist, will see it as anything more than personal vindictiveness.  

I think I understand your point better now.

You're not primarily criticizing it as bad diplomacy or ineffective policy. You're saying that many people will interpret it as revealing something about the motivation behind it. Renaming a shared lake doesn't advance trade negotiations, improve security, create jobs, or address any concrete national interest. Because the practical benefits are so hard to identify, observers naturally look for other explanations.

From that perspective, the act can come across less as nationalism in service of a political objective and more as symbolism for its own sake—or, as you put it, personal vindictiveness. If a leader has been publicly feuding with another country or its leaders, actions that seem designed to diminish or overwrite a long-established name can look petty regardless of whether they are framed as patriotic.

Historically, there have been plenty of nationalist naming campaigns. Some stuck because they accompanied major political transformations: St. Petersburg becoming Leningrad, Bombay becoming Mumbai, Ceylon becoming Sri Lanka. Those were tied to revolutions, decolonization, or changes in national identity. The challenge for something like "Lake America" is that there is no comparable underlying transformation. People ask, "What problem is this solving?" If the answer isn't obvious, the symbolism can seem arbitrary.

Whether one supports Trump or opposes him, I suspect many people—including some supporters—will view "Gulf of America" and "Lake America" differently from policies on trade, immigration, taxes, or foreign affairs. Those have clear objectives and measurable consequences. These renamings invite judgments about tone, temperament, and priorities.

And you're probably right that future historians may treat them less as serious geopolitical acts than as cultural artifacts—small episodes used to illustrate the style of politics of the era. The debate may not be over what the names were, but over what prompted a president to spend political capital on changing them in the first place.

Well Leningrad is now St. Petersburg again, and in the case of the other two you mention, these are just removing colonial era impositions.  

That's a fair distinction.

In the cases of Mumbai and Sri Lanka, supporters argued they were restoring indigenous or locally rooted names after periods of colonial rule. Whether one agrees with every such change or not, there is at least a coherent historical narrative: the names were connected to questions of national identity, self-determination, and decolonization.

Leningrad is also instructive because it changed twice. The city was St. Petersburg, then Petrograd, then Leningrad, and after the Soviet Union collapsed the residents voted to return to St. Petersburg. Each name reflected a major political and ideological shift. The names weren't arbitrary; they symbolized profound changes in the state itself.

That's quite different from renaming a lake that already has a long-established name and whose name is not generally regarded as a colonial imposition or a source of grievance. There is no obvious movement of people around Lake Ontario who have spent decades campaigning to replace the name. Nor is there a newly independent nation seeking to shed an imposed identity.

I think that's closer to the point you're making. Historical renamings often derive legitimacy from a story that many people recognize, even if they disagree with it. "Lake America" lacks an equally compelling narrative. As a result, people are more likely to interpret it through the lens of contemporary politics and personality rather than history.

That's why the charge of pettiness lands so readily with critics. When a symbolic act doesn't seem tied to a broader historical project or practical goal, observers tend to infer that the symbolism itself is the point. And if it occurs amid tensions with a neighboring country, it's not surprising that many would read it as a deliberate provocation rather than a nation-building exercise.

Whether that interpretation is correct is a matter of political judgment. But I agree that it is very different in character from most of the place-name changes that endure for generations. Those usually arise from broad social currents; this one appears much more closely associated with a single political figure and a particular moment.