Derek Alderman

“There is an important caveat in that this change does not have any authority on how US private entities [companies, nonprofits, news outlets] refer to the Lake.”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman noted the name change does not have authority over how US private entities refer to the lake.

“What we see at this moment, and with [Trump’s] previous renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, is a unilateral naming by decree or angry whim with seemingly no public discussion or real government consideration of impacts and consequences. The cost at stake with this renaming Lake Ontario is the loss of yet another democratic process in the United States,”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman criticized Trump's unilateral renaming by decree as a loss of democratic process.

“Those classrooms run the risk of communicating a myopic sense of place that diminishes Indigenous histories and the United States’s deep connections with Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America. The cost of the executive order is not simply an old name, but fuller awareness of the globe.”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman warned the executive order risks communicating a diminished sense of place that erases Indigenous histories and US connections with neighboring countries.

“The name Ontario is witness to a native presence that existed before the establishment of the United States and Canada, and which is crucial for expressing the historical depth of North America to students and wider communities,”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman discussed the historical significance of the name Ontario, which derives from the Huron Indigenous people's Wendat language.

“Trump’s executive order similarly is an attempt at erasing Indigenous culture from the map, exerting not just an ‘America-first’ ideology across the continent but a decidedly neocolonial geographic imagination in which the map and its names become tools for narrowing whose histories and contributions matter.”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman characterized Trump's executive order as an attempt to erase Indigenous culture from the map.

“While it is not perfect, it at least establishes an institutional procedure for review, consultation, evidence gathering, and consideration of competing claims before a geographic name is changed,”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman said the Board on Geographic Names at least establishes an institutional procedure before changing a geographic name.

“As a university educator, I worry about what broader educational and psychological deficits will be passed down to American classrooms required to use Lake America (as well as Gulf of America),”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman expressed concern about educational and psychological deficits in American classrooms required to use the name Lake America.

“Research has long shown that there can be a disconnect between a new naming being carried out officially by leaders and the ordinary people and their communities using and retaining the older name. That possible dissonance or disconnect can, at the end of the day, shape and in fact lessen the power of a federal mandate,”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman said research shows a disconnect between official name changes and common usage can lessen the power of a federal mandate.

“I don’t anticipate that the Lake Ontario name change will do anything to assist [in] the trade war with Canada,”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman expressed doubt that the name change would help the US in its trade war with Canada.

“I believe the name change, because of the way it is being carried out in such an abrupt, unilateral and vitriolic way by the president, could likely damage the United States’s ability to negotiate, given how much the Lake America mandate is inflaming opinions and defensive posture anxieties in Canada.”

Derek Alderman · said date not stated · reported 2026-08-28

Alderman warned the abrupt manner of the name change could damage US negotiating ability.