As we noted during his stay in the region, President Trump forwent wisely tinkering with geographical names and discarded the ostensible preliminary idea of using a different name for the Persian Gulf. A report by the AP pointing to this eventuality has stirred emotional reactions among the Iranians from all different walks of life.

Had President Trump gone ahead with the reported plan, he would have deviated from the traditional and formal US policy on Gulf nomenclature that had honored the name Persian Gulf since the creation of the United States. That would also have gone counter to the norms and principles that govern the standardization of geographical names and the consensus resolutions of the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names.

Hereafter, I explain how deeply the name Persian Gulf is rooted in the tradition of the American name standardization and foreign policy traditions:

The term ‘Persian Gulf’ adopted by the US specialized agencies

The US became the first government to establish an office entrusted with standardising geographical and administrative names. Created in 1890, the United States Board of Geographic Names (USBGN) was the first national body set up “to deal with contradictions and inconsistencies among many names, applications and spellings…” Decisions of the Board are accepted as binding by all departments and agencies of the Federal Government. Official US bodies, including diplomatic, intelligence and military agencies, rely on the USBGN for accurate names (p. 58).

Based on the recommendation of this body, the policy has always been to ‘cooperate wherever possible’ with foreign governments to use a local name, with the ‘optional use’ of conventional English names (p. 61). As all US departments are generally required to use formally correct place names in their communications with foreign governments, they also rely on names decided jointly by the USBGN and the State Department (p.125). ‘Persikos Kolpos’ [Persian Gulf], which is the oldest toponym for a body of water, was first used around 500 BC by Hecataeus (p. 39), the Greek geographer and historian, and remained the only universally used term up to the political challenge coming from Pan-Arabism in the 1960s. This designation was sanctioned for US government use since a decision made by the USBGN and the Department of State (DOS)’s Board of Geographical Names in 1917.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is another specialised US federal agency that is part of the US Department of Defense (DOD) and a component of the US Intelligence Community. It has a similar policy on the name ‘Persian Gulf’. The NGA produces maps and charts for air and marine navigation, mainly for US military purposes. It produces cartography and related products covering the entire world.

The NGA maintains a server – namely, the NGA GEOnet Names Server (GNS) – that is the ‘official repository of standard spellings of all foreign place names’ sanctioned by the Board of Geographical Names. The GNS lists ‘Persian Gulf’ as the only ‘conventional’ name for the body of water in question. The website containing information on names indicates that ‘the geographic names in this database are provided for the guidance of and use by the Federal Government and for the information of the general public’.

‘Sailing Directions Pub. 172 Red Sea and the Persian Gulf’ is a publication by the NGA. It covers stretches of water from the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea to the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. Sections 13 through 17 of this work depict the different parts of the Persian Gulf, beginning with ‘the Strait of Hormuz and the entrance to the Persian Gulf’ and ‘the Persian Gulf – Iran – Bushehr to the Shatt al-Arab’.

On the basis of the recognition by the USBGN and GNS of the term ‘Persian Gulf’ for US government use, and on the grounds of long-established domestic and global usage, all US agencies in principle acknowledge the term ‘Persian Gulf’. In practice, too, it was what all US agencies, media, etc, adhered to unwaveringly. Thus, ‘Persian Gulf’ has been the official American term since 1917 and in the absence of any explanation from the US government, there’s no logical reason to change it, except as a rather gesture calculated to annoy the Iranians.

The US Navy wavering with the term ‘Persian Gulf’

As US military units were reflagging and escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers at the height of a ‘tanker war’ in 1987 towards the end of the Iran–Iraq War, they began referring to the Gulf in official statements in September 1987 as the ‘Arabian Gulf’. At the time, a spokesman for the DOD said ‘this usage was adopted out of deference to a number of Arab countries’.

There are also signs indicating that the more a ‘cold war’ between Tehran and Washington set in, the more American officials have tended to distance themselves from the US’s time-honoured recognition of the term ‘Persian Gulf’. It seems that, increasingly, they began using this issue to bring more pressure to bear on Iran, in parallel with toughening sanctions.

During the Persian Gulf War in 1991–2, ‘Persian Gulf’ was often in the headlines. Although it has been in use for many years, US Navy commanders in the region, in parallel with the military base rights the US received from some Persian Gulf Arab states, began wavering on Persian Gulf nomenclature mainly during the Iraq war. As The Los Angeles Times noted then: “Some US Navy officials, in deference to the Arab partners of the multinational coalition against Iraq, have begun using the “Arabian Gulf” terminology.’ At the same time, they asked that the name be changed to ‘Arabian Gulf’.(p. 60) This request meant to pander to its Arab partners and providers of military bases.

The request was put before the USBGN Foreign Names Committee, which carefully studied the matter. Yet, however interesting under the circumstances, it was turned down. One argument – which has always been a major principle of the USBGN – emphasised that ‘no country can change a traditional name of a feature whose territory is beyond the sovereignty of a single nation’. Another argument against the change was ‘the existence of a nearby body of water already named the ‘Arabian Sea’(p. 60).

A US Navy spokesperson, addressing the protests by Iranians, reads as follows: “… [W]e are aware of the long and proud history of the Persian people … We are also well aware of the long history behind the origin of the name of the Persian Gulf … The term ‘Arabian Gulf’ (versus) Persian Gulf is really only applicable to the Navy since its commands in their area would be the only naval forces publishing stories in the region. In most other respects (nautical charts and publications for example) the historic name of Persian Gulf is used. We value and respect the partners with whom we serve around the globe, and mean no harm or insult to any people.” 

A review of the literature produced by the DOS shows that its officials are still mostly, and perhaps instinctively, loyal to the term with which they have been familiar for many years since their school and college days. Despite the official position on the use of the term ‘Persian Gulf’ in the State Department and the White House, occasionally and in specific circumstances another term has been used to address a different audience.

Congress and ‘Persian Gulf’  

The US Congress uses the name ‘Persian Gulf’ uniformly in legislation such as the ‘Persian Gulf Conflict Education Equity Act’, adopted on 5 February 1991. In another adopted act, a ‘Persian Gulf veteran’ is defined as ‘a veteran who served on active military, naval, or air service in the Southwest Asia Theatre of operations.’

We may conclude that ‘Persian Gulf’ continues to be the official name recognised by the US official agencies and by US academic, media and cultural establishments. The US Navy’s position on the usage of the term, as well as some inconsistency exhibited by the DOS, appear to be on account of deteriorating relations with Iran. This situation has allowed proponents of ‘Arabian Gulf’ to find a more receptive audience within various US administrations, especially where the matter of US forces stationed on Arab soil is concerned.

Kourosh Ahmadi is Former Diplomat and Author of Naming the Persian Gulf: The Roots of a Political Controversy, Ithaca Publishers, London, 2017