The name Gulf of Mexico had nothing do with the country we know today, which has the same name.
There was a Gulf of Mexico before there was a state of Mexico or even an America or United States. The only Gulf of America is the one between rationality and stupidity.
The prehispanic country of what is now Mexico had many regional names depending on the tribes that occupied the land’s central regions—until the Spanish under Hernan Cortés arrived and called the whole of this new territory New Spain.
The gulf, which was originally called the Great Bay, according to historians, was unnamed and was considered part of the Atlantic Ocean by the Europeans who found it.
The Aztecs had originally called the gulf Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl after the goddess of water and seas (true). But because nobody could say Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl, even after Aztec remedial night classes, the gulf was called simply the Gulf of Cortés, which would be changed to the “Gulf of Mexico” around 1540 as Cortés, after some really brutal behavior, sought to endear himself to the Aztecs, who were originally called ... now pay attention ... the Mexica.
New Spain was still New Spain—and I’d footnote that the Caribbean islands had become India under Columbus, who was celebrated in New Spain with streets and monuments named after him ... for the blessing that he never got there.
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