Last Friday, the new Trump administration officially changed its name on the bay, located in the Atlantic and is surrounded by the North American continent and Cuba.
For Google Maps users in the United States, the Mexican Gulf from now on will also be called American Gulf and not Mexican, a name bay for hundreds of years.
“We have long corrected after changing names when they are officially changed by authorities,” Google writes in a statement.
Already last week, the US Coast Guard went out and said they use the new name.
– Now they send reinforcement to “The Gulf of America”. So this is serious about the US authorities anyway, says Jonas Björck, foreign reporter on TV4 News.
Mexican Reply: Change Name of USA
The decision has received reactions worldwide. On social media, many Americans are clear that they will definitely not start calling the bay for American Gulf.
When Trump raised the idea earlier in January, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked Mexico to start calling the United States “Mexican America”.
– It is clear that you can get a little annoyed at this that he should change the name of things, but it is not really strange really. Just look at how to do in other countries. Russia has a city called Sankt Petersburg for hundreds of years. So it was changed to Petrograd during the First World War. When the Soviet Union became a reality, it was called Leningrad for a lot of years, to switch back to Sankt Petersburg in the 90s, says Jonas Björck.
– There are preference cases throughout history, throughout all years actually.
“We can expect most of it”
Also, North America’s highest mountain gets a new name in Google Maps, following orders from Donald Trump. Bergstoppen in Alaska, 2015 officially changed its name to Denali, the name the indigenous people for centuries called it. Since 1917, it had officially called Mount McKinley, after former President William McKinley. Now the mountain is again named after him.
Jonas Björck believes that more name changes are close by.
– I think we should expect that. When it comes to Trump, I think we should expect most things, even when it comes to this type of name in different places in the United States in the first place. Because he can’t control things that are outside the American sphere, we hope, he says.
It remains to be seen if even Swedes will start calling golf for the American.
– Then we have to go to ourselves. For example, we continue to call Beijing for Beijing. The Chinese capital which, according to all transcription rules, would be pronounced as Beijing. That decides every country and organization for itself.