Of the executive orders made by President Donald Trump on his first day back in the White House, one generating tons of attention was perhaps the most symbolic: renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, in addition to ordering Alaska's Denali be changed back to Mt. McKinley after the 25th president. But these are not the only global naming disputes in recent history.

Greece and Macedonia
For over a quarter century, the Balkans were at odds over the name of the Macedonia region, which contains large parts of Southeast Europe. Macedonia has "long existed as a northern region in Greece," said the BBC, and a quarrel began in 1991 when a "new nation, born out of the collapse of Yugoslavia," began calling itself Macedonia. 

A deal was eventually reached in 2019 to name the country North Macedonia. But in 2024, Greece accused the nation's "new center-right government of breaking a historic deal on the country's name," said The Associated Press.

South China Sea
China, Vietnam and the Philippines have different names for this body of water, and these titles are "not just semantic; they each advance a nationalist narrative and a historical claim," said The Diplomat. This "also reflects the geopolitical stakes in the South China Sea, where overlapping maritime and territorial claims have led to rising tensions among nations," said The Diplomat. 

India
Indians have long feuded over the name of their country. While the nation is officially called the Republic of India, many have pushed to change its name to Bharat, the Hindu word for India. Hindus have been pining to change the country's name officially, and the nation's constitution refers to it as "India, that is Bharat." 

India's president has also referred to herself as the president of Bharat. And "while some supporters of the name Bharat say 'India' was given by British colonizers, historians say the name predates colonial rule by centuries," said Reuters.

Younger generations are flocking to astrology in huge numbers. A recent survey in the U.S. found that 80% of Gen Z and younger millennials believe in this celestial pseudoscience. Also, the "astrology" hashtag has more than 4.5 million videos on TikTok, and the U.K.'s Astrological Association has even launched an online magazine targeted at younger generations. 

'Contextualize the chaos' 
Gen Z is growing up in an "uncertain world" marked by "economic challenges, political unrest and environmental concerns," said the Times of India. Belief in astrology "helps contextualize the chaos, whether it's a bad day explained by Mercury in retrograde or a tough year blamed on Saturn's return." 

Although technological advances "tend to weaken pseudoscience," in astrology's case they seem to have "expanded its reach," said The Economist. AI is "making access to prophecies even easier." Rather than seeing an astrologer in person, people are using digital services, and spending on fortune-telling apps is soaring. 

'Subcontracting challenging choices' 
One could understand the appeal of astrology for the younger generation. In an "increasingly broken world" with climate change, the "rise of the far-right" and "some of the worst men in human history" being "also the richest in human history," who "wouldn't want to turn to the galaxy at large for help"? said Helen Coffey in The Independent. But "don't make the mistake of thinking that burning orbs thousands of light years away know you better than you know yourself" or that "learning about the lunar nodes" can "help you take back control in a chaotic universe." 

This is not new. "Faced with paying off student loans while finding the rent for a matchbox and a partner to boot," Gen Z would "rather have something else in charge of their lives than themselves," said The Times. But in "substituting Venus and Mars for mom and dad, they are merely following in the ancient human tradition of subcontracting challenging choices and responsibility for events to a higher power."