The ongoing economic spat between Canada and the United States took a strange turn after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order “renaming” Lake Ontario as Lake America.

The lake is the second body of water to be renamed by Trump. In January 2025, he similarly ordered that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America. That same order also officially changed Alaska’s Mount Denali to its colonial name, Mount McKinley.

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While many might view Trump’s renamings as comical or unserious, for Indigenous communities, they are reminiscent of centuries of settler-colonial erasure.

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: Lake Ontario is renamed to LAKE AMERICA! 🇺🇸 https://t.co/ZFww8PexiW — The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 27, 2026

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: Lake Ontario is renamed to LAKE AMERICA! 🇺🇸 https://t.co/ZFww8PexiW

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 27, 2026

What’s in a place name?

The name Ontario can be traced to the Huron word ontarí:io, a Wyandot (Huron) word meaning “the lake is great/large,” with a root ontar- meaning “lake” and a suffix -io meaning “great/large.” Observant readers might notice that Ohio has the same -io suffix, translating to “large creek.”

The first written mention of the name Ontario was in 1641. Of course, the name predates 1641 and has existed for centuries. It is an example of an Indigenous place name that was adopted by European settlers. This, however, is not how all place names were adopted in Canada.

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