Comment by xp84
7 hours ago
> They have the ability to change name services in some database somewhere. But it's not actually an official name change.
Is it Congress who officially holds that power, then? And are you saying that if Congressional Republicans passed a bill renaming whatever, and Trump signed it, you'd then acknowlege it? Given how vanishingly little they accomplish in Congress already, I'm not sure we'd be better off distracting them from their semiannual debt ceiling/budget hostage situation in order to debate these inconsequential things.
Nobody officially holds that power. Names of geographic places are established by popular usage, not government fiat.
I’m not sure either is “how names are established”.
This is a pretty mushy area, philosophically. Is a name what you think something is called (I think our planet is called “Bloop”, but nobody cares) what a lot of people think something is called (“Indian” in reference to indigenous Americans is a famous example of that going poorly, as are many racist epithets), or what an official body says it should be called (“Palestine”, “New Zealand”, and “Taiwan” have entered the chat)?
I don’t think popular usage is any more “truly authoritative” for a name than other sources.