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Is Rügen island located in the Baltic Sea or (as Germans would have it) in the East Sea? It actually doesn’t matter. The water around the island will not be any clearer or more turbid, warmer or colder, calmer or rougher, regardless of what we call it. »What’s in a name?« as Juliet asks in the most famous of Shakespeare’s plays. The playwright lets her answer her own question: »A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.« The Japanese word for rose is bara and – here is the test case – it indeed smells just as sweet. Or take the German word Gift, which means poison. Only those who happened to be speaking English would want a Gift for their birthday, and would be happy to receive one. If the word Gift had some inherent connection to poison, then the link between word and thing would have to be the same everywhere. The burden of proof borne by an endless number of similar examples is overwhelming, assuming we don’t take that word too literally.
Juliet knew what she was talking about. There is nothing essential about names or words; they are purely conventional. What really matters is that we know what we mean when we speak of Gift, roses, or the East Sea. But wait a minute! If someone is called Donald Trump, doesn’t he have to trump everything and everyone again and again? Isn’t it so? Nomen est omen! Everybody knows that this is nonsense. The sad part is that nonsense doesn’t stop a lot of people from believing it.

»The rational does not displace the irrational.«

In fact, we are dealing here with a problem that has occupied philosophy since antiquity. Plato himself was already wondering whether words have meaning on account of their natural relation to the objects that they designate or on the basis of an agreement among members of society. And even longer ago, Confucius was asked what he would do if he were in government. Without hesitating he said he would rectify names, apparently under the assumption that such a thing is possible and that just governments would make the correct choices of words. Ever since, naturalism and conventionalism have been intransigent foes. This is because language not only serves the purpose of allowing us to order the world and exchange thoughts; it also conveys emotions. The rational does not displace the irrational.

That is the reason for the innumerable quarrels over the »correct« naming of things, especially place names. Disputes over whether a certain body of water should be known as the »East Sea« or the »Baltic Sea« are harmless enough (for the present), but there is no lack of more controversial examples. To this day Italian nationalists call the city of Rijeka on the Adriatic coast »Fiume.« Following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy the town became the scene of violent clashes between Croatia and Italy, ignited in part by the nationalist poet Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863–1938). In more recent times, esteemed writers like Maxim Gorky and Alexander Pushkin have fallen into disfavor in Ukraine, at least as sources of place names, because the Russian invasion has made Russian literature unpopular.

Or try asking an Argentinian woman whether there are any penguins in the Falkland Islands. If she can manage to contain her anger, she might ask you pointedly, »do you mean the Malvinas?« The Sea of Japan is known as the East Sea in South Korea but as the Korean Sea in North Korea. These labels provoke mutual annoyance on all three sides, and the International Hydrographic Organization has spent years unsuccessfully trying to settle the dispute.

Can a hyphen confer higher status?

Perhaps it would be an exaggeration to claim that the Czechoslovakian Socialist Republic fell apart over a hyphen, but that punctuation mark did play a role. In 1989, after the end of communist rule when the word »socialist« was stricken from the country’s name, the Slovaks demanded to put a hyphen between »Czecho« and »Slovakian,« because otherwise they might seem to have a lower status.  The Czechs rejected that demand and no agreement was ever reached. Something similar happened after Yugoslavia fell apart. Negotiations over the official name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia dragged on for years. Finally, it was decided to call the country North Macedonia, which infuriated many Greeks who fondly recall Alexander the Great, ancient king of Macedonia. The famous composer Mikis Theodorakis went so far as to lament a »crime against Greece.« Alexander lived long ago, but other disputes are more current. Whether you call the territory adjoining Israel »Judea« or »the West Bank« almost amounts to a profession of political faith.

Returning to Juliet for a moment: although she was right, she was also naïve since she ignored the fact that rational arguments rarely prevail when pitted against emotional ones. The examples cited demonstrate that, as would many others as well. If one thinks only about the changes made to colonial-era names – for instance the transformation of Rhodesia (named after a British colonial official) into Zimbabwe from 1980 on – one must acknowledge that place names are quite often politically sensitive topics. Of course, not every person wants to admit that, or else he simply doesn’t care, or he – yes, he – misuses names for his own purposes.

According to President Trump, political correctness (now often called »wokeness«) is a cancerous tumor, one that other people have, but not Trump himself, or so he would add. The flap over the Gulf of Mexico shows this, since its name inadvertently has become a bone of contention in what he calls his »ongoing war with the media.« Two weeks after taking office in January of 2025, President Trump decided that »Gulf of America« was the correct name for the waters in question, so he ordered all governmental bodies to use that name exclusively from now on. But what is the point of the name change? The simplest answer is: to pick fights with neighboring countries and especially with the media.

There is nothing new here. Trump-watchers are well aware of his longstanding contempt for the media, which dates back to his first term in the White House. Even then, the President was already routinely talking about the »dishonest and corrupt media.« He berated journalists who took a critical stance toward his administration, threatening to exclude them from press conferences. When the Associated Press News Agency (AP) refused to knuckle under this time and continued to print the name »Gulf of Mexico« (the name that has been used worldwide since the 17th century and officially recognized by the National Hydrographic Society), as punishment its reporters were denied access to Air Force one, the Presidential plane, in which they previously had been permitted to accompany the President on his travels. Others, above all pro-Trump media outlets like Fox News and USA Today, as well as Google Maps and Apple Maps, dutifully adopted the new nomenclature, presumably so as not to evoke the wrath of the ruler over a trivial matter.

It is not a trivial matter

To call this kind of pressure by its right name, it amounts to prescribed terminology: i.e., letting reporters know what line to take. By this time, bending the media to his will has become a well-documented goal of the USA’s 45th and 47th President. On this point he and his Russian counterpart see eye to eye. Quite a few journalists recall his remark to President Putin in front of and about the press on the margins of the G20 summit in Osaka in 2019: »Get rid of it! Fake news is a great idea, isn’t it? In Russia you don’t have this problem, but we do.« To that Putin responded: »We have it too. It’s the same thing.« Many observers and representatives of highly-regarded American media like the New York Times, CNN, and CBS consider President Trump’s treatment of the media to be a genuine threat to the freedom of the press, as guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even during his first term he called representatives of the press »enemies of the American people.« That moved media scholars to point out parallels to notorious autocrats, notably Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, who likewise denounced their critics, especially the press, as »enemies of the people.« 

Without even allowing the other country bordering on the Gulf to express its opinion on the issue, the President imposed a typographical name change on the U.S. population and the media and did so without the slightest justification. One has to see that edict for what it is: abuse of power. Unfortunately, one cannot follow Juliet here and ask »What’s in a name?« Place names follow the same pattern as lies. As Joseph Goebbels understood, if you repeat lies often enough, they will be believed. For that reason, Fact Checker’s database has by now set up a website exclusively for President Trump. It documents more than 30,000 false or misleading statements he has made.

That is interesting, but President Trump scarcely needs to worry about a website visited by even large numbers of ordinary citizens. Neither does he have to be concerned about the fact that those citizens might start asking questions about the philosophy of language or reflect on the fact that words are conventional markers with emotional connotations.  The water in the Gulf will not be any clearer or more turbid, warmer or colder, rougher or calmer. Nor will boundaries in the coastal waters be shifted (barring negotiations or war) depending on whether we call it the »Gulf of Mexico« or the »Gulf of America.« Presumably,  most citizens know that too. Nevertheless, in the long run naming can exert influence on the way we see things. This supposition underlies all of the conflicts over place names mentioned above.