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The 'OG' online map platform, MapQuest, says it won't change the name of Lake Ontario
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2026
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The distinction is that before Trump decided to hijack it for political purposes, the US government put a lot of thought and work into official names.
For big things like the gulf of Mexico, or lake Ontario, there shouldn't be a lot of confusion. But what about the little creek by your house? A series of inlets on a coastline? What if you have dozens of places with the same name; how do you differentiate? What if you have regional local names that differ from the name that outsiders use? What if you have competing names in general parlance? When you type it into a gps, where will it send you?
The U.S. Board of Geographical Names handled all these issues and more, and had been a trusted authority on place names, that mapmakers, businesses, and other governments all trusted to do a good job.
Still today, you can check out the GNIS and find out all kinds of cool stuff. Try searching for "Sugarloaf" to find all the mountains people named after a common thing, or "Denali" or "Washington"; you can find a lot of cool stuff on here, including alternate names for places. (https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis)
It is disgusting that the republicans are destroying years and years of slowly building trust and doing good work that helps all Americans because (check notes) it would be funny if he decreed the name were stupider?