Can a President Rename National Symbols and Institutions?

Published on LinkedIn: February 16, 2026

Presidential power is often assumed to include control over national symbols and institutions.

In constitutional terms, naming authority works very differently.

Names attached to federal buildings, institutions, and geographic features are not matters of personal presidential discretion. They are products of law, regulation, and established governmental process. This reflects a broader constitutional principle: control over public property and public institutions belongs primarily to Congress.

Congress determines how federal property is created, organized, and named. Executive agencies administer those assets, but administration is not ownership. The president oversees the executive branch; he does not personally possess the authority to redefine public institutions by declaration.

Where changes do occur, they occur through law. Congress may legislate a new name directly or authorize agencies to act under defined statutory procedures. Geographic names, in particular, are governed by formal processes designed to ensure uniformity, continuity, and public accountability — not impulse or preference.

This division of authority is intentional. Names carry legal, historical, and diplomatic significance. Placing that power in lawmaking processes prevents symbolic acts from becoming instruments of unilateral control.

Presidents may advocate, recommend, or express opinions about how national institutions should be described. But advocacy is not authority. In the American system, naming power flows from law, not from office.

Even symbols of national identity are governed by constitutional structure.