Het is wereldwijd al sinds het ontstaan van de mensheid een bekend gebruik om geografische namen aan te passen om allerlei redenen. Zie:
Wikipedia: Geographical renaming
Zo is er ook een naamsverandering van een berg in Alaska. In het kort hebben Indianen, Russen en Amerikanen (waaronder Obama en Trump), hier mee te maken gehad. Bron:
Wikipedia: Denali
Hieronder de relevante tekst uit de bron. Beetje lang, maar wel interessant.
The Koyukon Athabaskans who inhabit the area around the mountain have for centuries referred to the peak as Dinale or Denali. The name is based on a Koyukon word for 'high' or 'tall'.[25] During the Russian ownership of Alaska, the common name for the mountain was Bolshaya Gora (Russian: Большая Гора; bolshaya 'big'; gora 'mountain'), which is the Russian translation of Denali.[26] It was briefly called Densmore's Mountain in the late 1880s and early 1890s[27] after Frank Densmore, a gold prospector who was the first non-native Alaskan to reach the base of the mountain.[28]
In 1896, a gold prospector named it McKinley as political support for then-presidential candidate William McKinley, who became president the following year. The United States formally recognized the name Mount McKinley after President Woodrow Wilson signed the Mount McKinley National Park Act of February 26, 1917.[29] In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the north and south peaks of the mountain the "Churchill Peaks", in honor of British statesman Winston Churchill.[30] The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali in 1975, which was how it was referred to locally.[11][31] However, a request in 1975 from the Alaska state legislature to the United States Board on Geographic Names to do the same at the federal level was blocked by Ohio congressman Ralph Regula, whose district included McKinley's home town of Canton.[32]
On August 30, 2015, just ahead of a presidential visit to Alaska, the Barack Obama administration announced the name Denali would be restored in line with the Alaska Geographic Board's designation.[10][33] U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell issued the order changing the name to Denali on August 28, 2015, effective immediately.[7] Jewell said the change had been "a long time coming".[34] The renaming of the mountain received praise from Alaska's senior U.S. senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski,[35] who had previously introduced legislation to accomplish the name change,[36] but it drew criticism from several politicians from President McKinley's home state of Ohio, such as Governor John Kasich, U.S. Senator Rob Portman, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, and Representative Bob Gibbs, who described Obama's action as "constitutional overreach" because he said an act of Congress was required to rename the mountain.[37][38][39] The Alaska Dispatch News reported that the secretary of the interior has authority under federal law to change geographic names when the Board of Geographic Names does not act on a naming request within a "reasonable" period of time. Jewell told the Alaska Dispatch News that "I think any of us would think that 40 years is an unreasonable amount of time."[40]
In December 2024, President-elect Donald Trump stated that he planned to revert the mountain's official name back to Mount McKinley during his second term, in honor of President William McKinley. Trump had previously proposed changing the name in 2017, drawing opposition from Alaska's Republican governor Mike Dunleavy.[41] His 2017 proposal was strongly opposed by both U.S. senators from Alaska, Murkowski and another Republican named Dan Sullivan,[42] who, along with Alaska State Senator Scott Kawasaki, a Democrat, again expressed their preference for Denali in 2024.[43] On January 20, 2025, shortly after his second inauguration, Trump signed an executive order requiring the secretary of the interior to revert the Obama-era name change within 30 days of signing, renaming Denali back to Mount McKinley in official maps and communications from the American federal government.[44] The executive order does not change the name of Denali National Park.[45] On January 23, 2025, the Department of the Interior changed the mountain's official name back to Mount McKinley.[12][13] The same day, the Associated Press announced that it would use Mount McKinley instead of Denali, with the reasoning that as president, Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names of features lying within national borders.[46]
According to the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development's official database of business licenses, businesses named after Denali outnumber those named after McKinley by a margin of six to one.[47]
Indigenous names for Denali can be found in seven different Alaskan languages. The names fall into two categories. To the south of the Alaska Range in the Dena'ina and Ahtna languages the mountain is known by names that are translated as 'big mountain'. To the north of the Alaska Range in the Lower Tanana, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim, Holikachuk, and Deg Xinag languages the mountain is known by names that are translated as 'the high one',[48] 'the tall one' (Koyukon, Lower and Middle Tanana, Upper Kuskokwim, Deg Xinag, and Holikachuk).[49]
Asked about the importance of the mountain and its name, Will Mayo, former president of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, an organization that represents 42 Athabaskan tribes in the Alaskan interior, said: "It's not one homogeneous belief structure around the mountain, but we all agree that we're all deeply gratified by the acknowledgment of the importance of Denali to Alaska's people."[50]
Laten we dus niet doen alsof Trump ineens zo bijzonder is op dit punt. Als Fries, ook hier staan op alle naamborden en andere geografische aanduidingen dubbele namen in het Fries en Nederlands en die zijn soms ook totaal verschillend op basis van achtergrond en cultuur.
https://www.waldnet.nl/wn...en_Friese_plaatsnaam.html
Zo is het bekende Hindeloopen in het Fries Hylpen. En zo zijn er veel meer kleine dingen, zoals straatnamen of gebieden die we hier anders noemen. Het bekende Terschelling heet hier Skylge.
Wat mij betreft doet de regering Trump op dit punt niks bijzonders. Sterker nog, ik denk dat wij in Europa, vroeger de grootste kolonisten ooit, niet zo hypocriet moeten reageren op dit soort zaken. Alsof wij vandaag de dag de 'correcte namen' gebruiken voor landen als India (o.a. Bharat) en Japan (o.a. Nippon) en vroeger ook bij elke machtswisseling namen aanpasten, zoals Batavia (o.a. Jakarta).
Het lijkt een beetje op het markeren van een territorium met urine door veel diersoorten.
De toelichting van de Trump administration is dat de persvrijheid geldt, maar dat toegang tot het witte huis een 'privilige' is. Mensen van AP zijn wel bij andere momenten op dezelfde dag toegelaten, maar niet bij de benoeming van Gabbard in het Oval Office. Zie het bericht van AP zelf hierover:
https://apnews.com/articl...9a4b4f4661dd0831421943ef7
De aanleiding is dat AP zelf een statement maakt om de wettelijk doorgevoerde naamsverandering niet te gaan respecteren. Woordvoerder van het witte huis Karoline Leawitt gaf aan dat de privileges van AP dan naar een andere partij gaan. Zie:
https://san.com/cc/aps-wh...-gulf-of-america-dispute/
Het is maar net van welke kant je het bekijkt...
Ter afsluiting nog een leuke: de Noordzee.
Wikipedia: History of the North Sea
Die heeft vroeger in het Latijn ook Friese Zee en Duitse zee geheten. Gezien de vele beschavingen die aan de Noordzee hebben gewoond, is het wel zo netjes om de referentie naar zeker de Friezen weg te laten, toch?
Maar hoe is het voor mensen in Denemarken om een zee ten westen van hun de Noordzee te noemen. En voor mensen in Noorwegen is het een zee meer in het zuiden. Oh, en Noorwegen heet eigenlijk officieel het Koninkrijk Noorwegen. En in eigen lokale talen:
Noors: Kongeriket Norge (Bokmål), Kongeriket Noreg (Nynorsk); Noord-Samisch: Norgga gonagasriika; Lule-Samisch: Vuona gånågisrijkka; Zuid-Samisch: Nöörjen gånkarijhke, Kveens: Norjan kuninkhaanvaltakunta