It seems that there are 363,123 `official_name:` tags in OSM [1], and the discussion thread hints that at least some* of them are due to naming disputes. Given (according to the thread) no-one actually renders the tag on their maps, using that tag in this case seems like a good policy.
North Korea has all sort of nasty names ready to throw at America, South Korea, or others, though at least I think they're just name-calling, not considering them as "official" names. (So, in a twisted sense, even North Korea is more adult-like than Trump. I guess that's another cause of celebration for some HN commenters who look up to Trump for being the manly leader who boldly does the right thing that nobody else dares to do.)
Thankfully, North Korea's antics doesn't matter, because nobody is trying to sell map service to North Koreans anyway.
Not sure it's really valid to call this "official". Trump can issue an executive order to the USGS to change names in the GNIS, but the use of USGS/GNIS data as the "official" name of things outside of the federal executive's own activities is itself just a matter of convention.
> Yes, but it's also Trump and the GOP self-immolating. November is going to be a historic electoral wipeout.
> I expect the next administration will push through some laws limiting this sort of idiocy.
The problem is that the bar is now so low that basically anybody will win, by design.
They'll pass some surface level bullshit to treat symptoms, like how lakes can or cannot be renamed. But they'll fail to address any root, systemic issues that allowed this BS to unfold in the first place, paving the way for the other half of the Uniparty to resume power 4-8 years later.
It does feel as though the best chance the US had to fix this in living memory would have been if Biden's response to the "United States v. Trump" verdict had been to immediately execute the Justices who said that's fine.
They're clearly OK with that, so it's not a problem that we can't ask them because they're dead, but the remaining Justices might now want to weigh in on whether it's OK to kill Supreme Court Justices if you're President, and might perhaps be expected to decide that's not OK and the earlier judgement was flawed.
Your preferred response to Trump trying to unilaterally seize power when an election didn't go "the right way" is to have Biden execute Supreme Court justices when a case didn't get decided "the right way"? You think that's better?
It's justice. The only sensible way to respond to "We've decided that your Office is above the Law" is to kill the people who made that decision. Most likely the remaining Justices have you incarcerated for murder, because um, yeah, that "The law doesn't apply to Presidents" decision is clearly a terrible idea as you have now demonstrated.
It's not even that many deaths, Trump's decisions have directly killed far more people than that without them having any say in the matter - He isn't (and never will be) in jail for it because of course these assholes get to do whatever they want and a Democrat will maybe send them a stern letter
The response we saw would be appropriate for toddlers but the Justices aren't toddlers, they're adults, they knew perfectly well what they were doing and so the only way to deliver justice was to ensure their decision has consequences.
That's because the Democrats are controlled rather than true opposition. It still makes the party a better option than Republicans often times, in that they won't intentionally (but will sometimes accidentally) break things or start new fires, but they rarely (if ever) try to fix what's broken or put out existing fires.
What we really need is to sweep away the existing party duopoly, particularly by dropping the bullshit and actively harmful first-past-the-post electoral system which effectively mandates it.
Tariffs are very populist and both sides have some amount of support for them, so I don’t see them going away. If anything, the democrats are less libertarian than the republicans (historically, before Trump), so I just don’t see them liberalizing tariffs so much as going back to a more sane Obama-style normal.
The socialist wing of the Democratic Party is even less libertarian than the moderates, and it’s hard to call them controlled.
Tariffs as a concept are fine. They're one of the economic tools available to a nation.
What's particularly damaging about Trump's approach to tariffs is the uncertainty. The targets don't always make a lot of sense. They're done haphazardly through questionable paths, which means they're subject to legal challenges. They're changed on a whim when Trump decides he needs to make a splash, or when someone says something he doesn't like, or when he wants to blow up a negotiation, or whatever.
It all leads to a situation where business owners and investors can't really be sure what the tariff landscape is 6, 12, 18, 24 months into the future. Will the tariffs survive legal challenges? Who will Trump decide to tariff next? Which tariffs might be increased drastically next week?
That is not an environment that fosters investment and business growth.
Moderate, business-oriented Democrats and Republicans would all agree with you, BUT these are a group of people that both sides of the party are railing against so they have basically no influence at this point. Even Obama, people selectively remember him fondly (or not) for his compassion and mild socialism, not for his strong free trade stance.
As a Canadian, we are mostly just laughing about how childish he is. As a Canadian business owner who has American customers, I’m far more concerned about his temper tantrums relating to trade, however so far they have not impacted my sector.
Not sure what’s there to apologize about. Canada can still call it Lake Ontario right? Or I wonder if it matters whether it’s on American soil or not whether international bodies recognize it?
Why not choose to feel patriotic about the decision. It gives us recognition for what we've done with the body of water. Arguably the fact that you feel embarrassed or need to apologize shows the lack of patriotism you feel over the body of water, so I think this new name can help future people feel patriotic over it. There is a lot of power in a name.
> Why not choose to feel patriotic about the decision.
If you really need lake names to feel patriotic then you might question why to be patriotic about your country. Lake names should rank very, very low on reasons to cherish your country.
I'd suggest you move your focus to things that matter a lot more, such as solid republican institutions. And notice that I wrote 'republican' with a small 'r'. It is intentional, I am referring to the political concept invented by the Romans, not your personality-cult American party.
"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain
This is my kind of patriotism, personally. I love America. I want America to succeed in the world. And I will call my government out when it is fucking it up.
Renaming Lake Ontario on a whim because Trump is no longer happy with the USMCA trade deal he himself made just a few years ago and the negotiations aren't going well because he keeps making crazy demands is squarely in "fucking it up" territory.
Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Ruben Ray Martinez would love to debate you...except they were US citizens who were executed by masked ICE thugs, so they're unable to speak at the moment.
We are absolutely being taken over by a gang / mafia style organization.
ICE is an official government agency and not a gang. Those people were not randomly executed but killed in self defense as consequences of their own actions of creating danger towards law enforcement. This is not the same thing as being randomly killed in the middle of the street and is manipulative wording to imply it.
There was absolutely no reason for any of those 3 individuals to end up dead for the non-violent actions they took, and it has been repeatedly shown through video evidence that the federal government lied and continues to lie about the circumstances in all of those cases.
If the individuals would have acted civilly it would not have come to this. They are the only ones to blame for the consequences of their actions. And calling this actions non-violent is manipulative phrasing to make people think that the actions did not escalate the danger of the situation.
As a Canadian I say: please don't apologize; we're actually enjoying this.
The US could retaliate in a lot of other ways that could be much more hurtful to us: higher tariffs, break collaboration treaties, etc. The fact that Trump is "fighting back" with something this lame is just funny. It is like watching a 5 year old throwing a tantrum.
Pretty sure lake Ontario was named after the native people who lived on its shores, not after the Canadian province. I suppose, lake Michigan and lake Huron are the same. Perhaps we can name them all lake America.
This is an improvement on starting a war on oil markets and getting I've-lost-count-how-many innocents killed in the Middle East. So in many ways this could be considered a step up for US foreign policy. If Trump can stick to low-stakes pettiness that would be a real win for us all.
As a Canadian, I have to admit: Trump is very, very talented in manipulating the discourse in the public arena.
Gradually, he is steering away the public discussion from what matters: the Iran War, inflation, the abusive police state created by ICE, the rise of China and weakening of international standing of US... We're making a lot of noise about what doesn't matter: what's the name of a lake.
It is like when I admonish my 4 year old son about something he did and he replies: "Look over there!".
And you know the funniest part? It has been working for years and will keep working! Remember the "immigrants eat our cats and dogs"?
This low-level debating is exactly what Neil Postman described in "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business", in 1985. The entertainment industry makes everyone stupid.
> Gradually, he is steering away the public discussion from what matters: the Iran War, inflation, the abusive police state created by ICE, the rise of China and weakening of international standing of US...
Lots of countries change the names of things, even countries themselves.. Bombay to Mumbai, Ceylon to Sri Lanka, Turkey to Türkiye etc. Yes, some of those are specific to a name in a particular language and all have precedents rather than being entirely new. However, it is a precedent for governments deciding the names of things.
This, as its just made up, reminds me a lot of political/nationalist renaming of things like roads which is very common in parts of South Asia.
I feel like instances of this kind of decision (also from your examples) fall into two groups: replacing names from colonization with local names, and... Second group name left as an exercise to the reader.
There is less difference than you imply. It is nationalists who are keenest on replacing colonial names. Not all name changes are of colonial names either.
What about when the locals are perfectly happy with the colonial name and politicians (maybe distant from the place) want to change it?
Attempts by political states to attempt to nationalize the vernacular should be ignored and rejected in all cases.
The examples you're citing are less ridiculous than these recent stunts, but still should be considered in terms of their intentions and effects.
What's the motivation for trying to detatch the name of something from its existing understanding and historical context?
Why should the attempts to "rebrand" an entire country or geographical feature made by a government -- a particular instituion within society, usually under the control of one narrow faction in opposition to others -- be respected by the whole of society within that country, let alone by people in foreign countries speaking their own language?
Why should, for example, the Turkish government -- which operates in the Turkish language, where "Türkiye" already was the standard name of their country -- be respected in its attempt to get English speakers to write the country's name in orthography that is not readily pronounceable by English speakers and using characters that aren't even typically on our keyboards?
> However, it is a precedent for governments deciding the names of things.
??? that's not true at all
> reminds me a lot of political/nationalist renaming of things like roads which is very common in parts of South Asia
Isn't that very common in... Canada?
Ottawa, Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway -> Kichi Zībī Mīkan (2023)
Winnipeg, Bishop Grandin Boulevard -> Abinojii Mikanah (2023–24)
Halifax, Cornwallis Street -> Nora Bernard Street (2023)
Montreal, Rue Amherst -> Rue Atateken (2019)
Vancouver, Trutch Street -> šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm Street (2025)
Victoria, Trutch Street -> Su'it Street (2022)
Calgary, Langevin Bridge -> Reconciliation Bridge (2017)
It's not like the current US admin is the first in North America to decide to rename things for political reasons.
I have lived in South Asia and have never been to Canada and know little about it.
Are the Canadian examples nationalist? It looks like your first example was first renamed after a politician (which is like South Asia) and then renamed again after a pushback to that (which is not like South Asia)
Attempts to rename a body of water that is shared by two countries with the name of one of the countries, unilaterally, is 1) impolite, 2) pretty rare, and 3) completely ineffective and just makes you look weak.
Canada should change the name of the country below them to “Bottom Canada”
Honestly can’t believe there’s a few million very smart people in America who have to put up with this. Bridges for Americans worldwide are being burned to the ground and there’s no sign of a new enlightened political age arriving on any horizon. Canadians also don’t seem to understand that this situation is only going to get worse and America can no longer be considered a friend.
> Canadians also don’t seem to understand that this situation is only going to get worse and America can no longer be considered a friend.
As a Canadian, I very much understand that this will/can get worse, and not just for the US. The problems of America do not stop at Trump. He is merely the distracting, mercurial figurehead of a dysfunctional government and populist movement.
It is not a matter of friendship --- the average American isn't that different than the average Canadian. Some of my best friends and favoured colleagues are Americans. We can't turn this into Americans v. Canadians. We're all just getting exposed to the same social media cues that feed on fear and despair driven by profit and bad actors which leads to an erosion of trust and goodwill. America may just be a few short years ahead of the rest of us. We need to recognize who/what is driving us apart and fight that.
I can totally appreciate that there’s really not much of a difference between Americans and Canadians in terms of mindset and habits. What i mean is that if Canadians are going to want to stay as Canadians, then they really are going to have to fight for it.
> "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt," said the late Pierre Trudeau.
On one hand, this shit is wildly embarrassing on the world stage. But on the other, I am kind of glad that he's passing these incredibly stupid, petty, and ineffective Executive Orders.
He is absolutely trashing the GOP brand with this shit. Granted, 30% approval is pretty embarrassing, but you have to remember every population has a bottom 3 deciles. Besides, almost everything destructive that he's done this term has been via XOs which can just as easily be unwound by the next admin.
The farther they let him swing the pendulum on this culture war nonsense, the greater the backswing is going to be. Honestly, I'm kind of hopeful the millenials are going to finally deliver socialized health care for the US in the next 10 years.
I've been referring to it as the "United States of Lower Canada" (USLC) since, and calling my American family members "Lower Canadians". They giggle in a kind of resigned way.
The orange narcissist will probably see it as a win and the sane people in the country may finally be embarrassed enough to actually do something about him and his cronies.
I am Italian, and we get quite pissed when the government issues executive orders (the head of state can't do it), although it happens relatively often. I live in France, and when the president resorted to using them it felt like he was threatening democracy.
The US mechanism seems the strongest of the three, and people have considered this a normal thing in a democracy long enough for this to happen.
Executive Orders really aren't that powerful. They can only command the executive branch to do something and are not legislature at all. Trump is certainly proving you can get pretty creative with enforcement to enact terror though, I'd agree to that.
Half the members of the legislature act like Trump is a king and believe that his Executive Orders are the same as laws signed by themselves. They've said as much on national television.
This also creates these weird situations where the courts (or the Supreme Court, at least) says "Well the executive order is just an order, and federal agencies will actually have to implement it, and until we see the specific implementation, gosh, we can't evaluate whether the order is to do an illegal thing, even though it's pretty clear that illegal things will be necessary to implement the order. Maybe they'll find a legal way to do it, who knows? We certainly don't!"
This feels like the right-wing equivalent of pronoun policing lol. Crazy how the extremes of the political spectrum are so close to each other (like a horseshoe), yet hate each other so much. Doesn't seem like the polarization is near to ratcheting down though, at least not by judging from the comments in this thread.
> This feels like the right-wing equivalent of pronoun policing lol.
Nothing about it feels "right-wing" at all -- actual conservatism is all about maintaining continuity and avoiding forced changes to traditional conventions and established social norms.
Trump and his followers are a competing faction of the extreme left, as should be readily evidenced by his economic policies, and it's not at all surprising that he shares the same mentality of inserting political shibboleths into mundane aspects of everyday life.
79 comments
[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 7.9 ms ] threadname:en=Lake Ontario
vs.
official_name:en-US=Lake America
(Google Translate from "Satan's armpit").
I mean, if temper tantrums by the supreme executive are allowed and all.
[1]: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/official_name#overvie...
Thankfully, North Korea's antics doesn't matter, because nobody is trying to sell map service to North Koreans anyway.
I expect the next administration will push through some laws limiting this sort of idiocy.
> I expect the next administration will push through some laws limiting this sort of idiocy.
The problem is that the bar is now so low that basically anybody will win, by design.
They'll pass some surface level bullshit to treat symptoms, like how lakes can or cannot be renamed. But they'll fail to address any root, systemic issues that allowed this BS to unfold in the first place, paving the way for the other half of the Uniparty to resume power 4-8 years later.
Democracy is illusory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty
"In a 5-4 decision..."
They're clearly OK with that, so it's not a problem that we can't ask them because they're dead, but the remaining Justices might now want to weigh in on whether it's OK to kill Supreme Court Justices if you're President, and might perhaps be expected to decide that's not OK and the earlier judgement was flawed.
It's not even that many deaths, Trump's decisions have directly killed far more people than that without them having any say in the matter - He isn't (and never will be) in jail for it because of course these assholes get to do whatever they want and a Democrat will maybe send them a stern letter
The response we saw would be appropriate for toddlers but the Justices aren't toddlers, they're adults, they knew perfectly well what they were doing and so the only way to deliver justice was to ensure their decision has consequences.
What we really need is to sweep away the existing party duopoly, particularly by dropping the bullshit and actively harmful first-past-the-post electoral system which effectively mandates it.
The socialist wing of the Democratic Party is even less libertarian than the moderates, and it’s hard to call them controlled.
What's particularly damaging about Trump's approach to tariffs is the uncertainty. The targets don't always make a lot of sense. They're done haphazardly through questionable paths, which means they're subject to legal challenges. They're changed on a whim when Trump decides he needs to make a splash, or when someone says something he doesn't like, or when he wants to blow up a negotiation, or whatever.
It all leads to a situation where business owners and investors can't really be sure what the tariff landscape is 6, 12, 18, 24 months into the future. Will the tariffs survive legal challenges? Who will Trump decide to tariff next? Which tariffs might be increased drastically next week?
That is not an environment that fosters investment and business growth.
Unfortunately November is going to be a historic voter supression event like nothing ever seen before.
(Laughing and crying.)
If you really need lake names to feel patriotic then you might question why to be patriotic about your country. Lake names should rank very, very low on reasons to cherish your country.
I'd suggest you move your focus to things that matter a lot more, such as solid republican institutions. And notice that I wrote 'republican' with a small 'r'. It is intentional, I am referring to the political concept invented by the Romans, not your personality-cult American party.
How do you have pride when the leader of your tribe is a liar, swindler, rapist, thug?
What a simplistic mind that says unthinkingly "Well the leader of my country wants it, I'm not going to question him, rah rah!"
This is my kind of patriotism, personally. I love America. I want America to succeed in the world. And I will call my government out when it is fucking it up.
Renaming Lake Ontario on a whim because Trump is no longer happy with the USMCA trade deal he himself made just a few years ago and the negotiations aren't going well because he keeps making crazy demands is squarely in "fucking it up" territory.
We are absolutely being taken over by a gang / mafia style organization.
There was absolutely no reason for any of those 3 individuals to end up dead for the non-violent actions they took, and it has been repeatedly shown through video evidence that the federal government lied and continues to lie about the circumstances in all of those cases.
Such as?
As a Canadian I say: please don't apologize; we're actually enjoying this.
The US could retaliate in a lot of other ways that could be much more hurtful to us: higher tariffs, break collaboration treaties, etc. The fact that Trump is "fighting back" with something this lame is just funny. It is like watching a 5 year old throwing a tantrum.
It is already becoming "Planet China", slowly and gradually.
Gradually, he is steering away the public discussion from what matters: the Iran War, inflation, the abusive police state created by ICE, the rise of China and weakening of international standing of US... We're making a lot of noise about what doesn't matter: what's the name of a lake.
It is like when I admonish my 4 year old son about something he did and he replies: "Look over there!".
And you know the funniest part? It has been working for years and will keep working! Remember the "immigrants eat our cats and dogs"?
This low-level debating is exactly what Neil Postman described in "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business", in 1985. The entertainment industry makes everyone stupid.
The Epstein Files.
This, as its just made up, reminds me a lot of political/nationalist renaming of things like roads which is very common in parts of South Asia.
Totally unserious behavior, and it's ridiculous that Americans and the rest of the world have to put up with this nonsense.
A small number of Republican representatives and senators could end it all today by publicly supporting impeachment.
What about when the locals are perfectly happy with the colonial name and politicians (maybe distant from the place) want to change it?
The examples you're citing are less ridiculous than these recent stunts, but still should be considered in terms of their intentions and effects.
What's the motivation for trying to detatch the name of something from its existing understanding and historical context?
Why should the attempts to "rebrand" an entire country or geographical feature made by a government -- a particular instituion within society, usually under the control of one narrow faction in opposition to others -- be respected by the whole of society within that country, let alone by people in foreign countries speaking their own language?
Why should, for example, the Turkish government -- which operates in the Turkish language, where "Türkiye" already was the standard name of their country -- be respected in its attempt to get English speakers to write the country's name in orthography that is not readily pronounceable by English speakers and using characters that aren't even typically on our keyboards?
??? that's not true at all
> reminds me a lot of political/nationalist renaming of things like roads which is very common in parts of South Asia
Isn't that very common in... Canada?
It's not like the current US admin is the first in North America to decide to rename things for political reasons.Are the Canadian examples nationalist? It looks like your first example was first renamed after a politician (which is like South Asia) and then renamed again after a pushback to that (which is not like South Asia)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49533216
Honestly can’t believe there’s a few million very smart people in America who have to put up with this. Bridges for Americans worldwide are being burned to the ground and there’s no sign of a new enlightened political age arriving on any horizon. Canadians also don’t seem to understand that this situation is only going to get worse and America can no longer be considered a friend.
As a Canadian, I very much understand that this will/can get worse, and not just for the US. The problems of America do not stop at Trump. He is merely the distracting, mercurial figurehead of a dysfunctional government and populist movement.
It is not a matter of friendship --- the average American isn't that different than the average Canadian. Some of my best friends and favoured colleagues are Americans. We can't turn this into Americans v. Canadians. We're all just getting exposed to the same social media cues that feed on fear and despair driven by profit and bad actors which leads to an erosion of trust and goodwill. America may just be a few short years ahead of the rest of us. We need to recognize who/what is driving us apart and fight that.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-june-17-2...
He is absolutely trashing the GOP brand with this shit. Granted, 30% approval is pretty embarrassing, but you have to remember every population has a bottom 3 deciles. Besides, almost everything destructive that he's done this term has been via XOs which can just as easily be unwound by the next admin.
The farther they let him swing the pendulum on this culture war nonsense, the greater the backswing is going to be. Honestly, I'm kind of hopeful the millenials are going to finally deliver socialized health care for the US in the next 10 years.
The orange narcissist will probably see it as a win and the sane people in the country may finally be embarrassed enough to actually do something about him and his cronies.
It will likely improve when the Russian asset departs, maybe even after the mid terms.
The US mechanism seems the strongest of the three, and people have considered this a normal thing in a democracy long enough for this to happen.
Clown court.
Nothing about it feels "right-wing" at all -- actual conservatism is all about maintaining continuity and avoiding forced changes to traditional conventions and established social norms.
Trump and his followers are a competing faction of the extreme left, as should be readily evidenced by his economic policies, and it's not at all surprising that he shares the same mentality of inserting political shibboleths into mundane aspects of everyday life.
Changes to major landmarks require a 5-year grace period.