Ohio governor candidate suggests renaming Great Lake to ‘Lake Ohio’

While we’re asking whether or not the Gulf of Mexico will become the Gulf of America, we’ll have another question to chew on, and one that’s a lot closer to home:

Could Lake Erie become Lake Ohio?

During a Toledo fundraiser last week, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy floated the idea of a possible Great Lakes name change.

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“Anybody think if there’s a Lake Michigan, maybe there should be a Lake Ohio around here?” he said.

The candidate for governor did not specifically name Lake Erie, but it is the only Great Lake with an Ohio shoreline. According to a Cleveland.com story,
Ramaswamy’s team said the name change suggestion was just a joke, and there are not any real plans to rename a great lake, which was originally named after the Erie Tribe.

Ramaswamy is running for governor in 2026. With incumbent Mike Dewine’s gubernatorial run finished (he cannot run for a third term), Ramaswamy will be running against former school board president Heather Hill and current Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, although more candidates may still declare.

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