U.S. President Donald Trump has set his sights on another body of water and wants to rename it: the Atlantic Ocean. However, this time, he says that Google CEO Sundar Pichai told him it's not possible.
On Wednesday, during a rally in Pendleton, South Carolina, Trump said, "We seriously studied the Atlantic Ocean, and I even called Google Maps; they were really cooperative regarding the lake.”
Trump recalled that Pichai said at the time, "No, no, no. I'm not doing it this time." According to Trump, Pichai explained that the ocean spans multiple countries and advised him, "Please don't let's do this."
Trump then asked the crowd present, "So should I just give up... I think we should continue to call it the Atlantic, right?"
But Trump didn't stop there. He then proposed renaming the Pacific Ocean as the "American Ocean" and asked what Europe would think about it, despite the fact that no region in Europe is located along the Pacific coast.
This is not the first time Trump has mentioned this idea. Last Friday, at a rally in Dalton, Georgia, Trump said that he had asked Google whether it would be possible to rename the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean as the “Trump Ocean.”
Trump said to the crowd on site, "Do you know what they say? 'We're fed up. Enough. We're not doing this anymore.'"
He said he was just joking at the time. He then added that he had sent Google “a small picture” with “The Trump Ocean (Trump style)” on it, and Google replied that the situation in the ocean was different. “I said I was just joking. I was indeed joking that time,” Trump said.
Trump first joked about renaming oceans as early as August. At that time, he signed an order in the Oval Office to rename Lake Ontario.
Fortune sought confirmation from Google regarding Trump's statements about this conversation and asked whether Google had received any formal requests to rename the Atlantic Ocean. Fortune also inquired as to how Google would handle a proposal to change the name of an ocean shared by multiple countries. Google did not respond to Fortune's request for comment.
Trump's push to change the names of geographical landmarks began on his first day back in the White House. On January 20, 2025, he signed an executive order requiring the federal government to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America."
On August 27, 2026, he signed Executive Order No. 14422, renaming Lake Ontario to "Lake America," despite the fact that this lake is shared with Canada.
Can Trump rename an entire ocean?
In terms of federal usage, the names of oceans and seas are managed by the "Foreign Names Committee," which is part of the United States Geographical Names Board. This information comes from a report released in September by the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan research institution of the U.S. Congress.
Trump can instruct federal agencies to adopt different names for the Atlantic or Pacific. However, this does not mean that such a change would be binding in other areas.
The example of Lake Ontario has already demonstrated the limitations of such an approach. Trump’s order merely rechristened it at the federal level in the United States, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to accept this change, stating that Canadians will continue to call it Lake Ontario “in the past, in the present, and forever.”
At the international level, a United Nations resolution on geographical names states that when countries sharing a particular geographical entity cannot reach an agreement on a common name, any name used by those countries can be accepted. The naming choice of one country cannot override that of other countries. Compared to a gulf or lake, it is obviously much more difficult to change the name of an ocean surrounded by dozens of countries.
Google doesn't have to follow Trump, but it indeed did so in the past.
Google is not legally obligated to adopt any of the aforementioned name changes. A report from the Congressional Research Service indicates that federal naming decisions are not binding on private companies such as Google Maps and Apple Maps.
Nevertheless, after the update to the Federal Geographical Names Information System, Google Maps still adopted the names "American Bay" and "American Lake" for American users. Google stated that these adjustments are in line with its long-term policy of reflecting official government sources and displaying different water body names by country.
For the Gulf of Mexico, Mexican users still see it as "Gulf of Mexico," while users from the United States and outside of Mexico see both names simultaneously. This decision regarding the name of the gulf has also come at a cost: Mexico has sued Google over this labeling.
For Lake Ontario, Canadian users continue to see its original name, while users in the United States and outside of Canada see both names simultaneously. A few days later, Apple Maps also made the same change for US users.
Business Insider reports that Google has "come under criticism" for renaming Lake Ontario and is facing backlash from users and Canadian officials.
Meanwhile, competitor MapQuest refused to adopt the new name, just as they did previously with "American Bay." According to data cited by TechCrunch from Sensor Tower, after Trump signed the order on August 27th, the app's downloads in the United States reached an estimated 632,000; its ranking on Apple's US App Store also rose from 128th on August 28th to 1st in the overall rankings on September 1st.
From proposing to rename the Strait of Hormuz as the “Trump Strait” to suggesting changing the Pacific Ocean to the “American Ocean,” Trump clearly doesn’t lack new names for things. However, if his description of Pichai’s hesitant attitude is true, then for Google, renaming an entire ocean might indeed be going a bit too far.
