Trump's "Lake America" Naming Fails to Gain Media Traction

Donald Trump has again attempted to rename a significant geographical feature, this time declaring Lake Ontario to be "Lake America." This follows a similar declaration in the previous year where he asserted that the Gulf of Mexico should be known as the "Gulf of America." While Trump's influence over federal government naming conventions may be substantial, his ability to control how news media refers to these locations appears limited. An analysis conducted using Media Cloud tracked mentions of "Gulf of Mexico" and "Gulf of America" in news stories published between February 1, 2025, and August 26, 2026, the day before the "Lake America" designation emerged. The findings indicated that "Gulf of America" saw very little adoption outside of MAGA-aligned media. In fact, the use of "Gulf of Mexico" increased its prevalence during this period. The current analysis, focusing on the "Lake America" initiative, suggests a similar outcome, with "Lake America" failing to gain widespread acceptance among news outlets. The study examined three distinct categories of news outlets as defined by Media Cloud: 247 major national news organizations, including prominent outlets like The New York Times, CBS News, Chicago Tribune, TMZ, and Rolling Stone, as well as partisan sites such as Breitbart and AlterNet. A second group comprised 572 sites frequently mentioned in tweets by individuals with Democratic leanings, encompassing explicitly liberal publications like The Nation and Mother Jones, mainstream outlets such as The Boston Globe and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and various magazines like Vogue and Pitchfork. The third group consisted of 406 sites frequently mentioned in tweets by individuals with Republican leanings, including Fox News, The Gateway Pundit, and The Federalist, alongside less partisan outlets like the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Orange County Register, and numerous local television stations. For each of these outlet groups, the analysis tallied the frequency of mentions for the different geographical names. The results indicate a consistent pattern of resistance to Trump's renaming efforts across these diverse media landscapes, with traditional and established names continuing to dominate reporting, underscoring the media's role in shaping and maintaining common nomenclature for geographical features, independent of political pronouncements.