Its a body of water that draws millions of people to our shores every year, and takes up more than half of our state's coastline. The Gulf of Mexico, or just "The Gulf" as its often known, is vital to the state of Florida and the United States. That's part of the reason why the President Elect has suggested changing its name to the "Gulf of America" But changing the name, might not be as simple as it sounds. "We've been coming here together since we were like 4 years old, and its never bothered us that it is called the Gulf of Mexico." said Annie Blair, visiting Bonita Beach with her friend Carson Damery. Despite the cold weather, they decided to enjoy the sun and sand in front of the scenic Gulf of Mexico, at least that's what it is called for now. The idea of renaming the Gulf would be a huge change for our community and our country, but while some we spoke to were all about it, others were a bit confused. They're not alone either. Most people had a similar reaction when hearing about the President's intention to change the name of the Gulf. But what would it take to officially change the name from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and is it even possible? To get the answer to that question, we spoke with Congressman Greg Steube. "I wish I had thought about it sooner, you have a lot of states that border the gulf of mexico to rename it the gulf of America, its widely supported in my district, and you can see a lot of the support on social media as well." Steube said. He also outlined exactly what would need to happen to make the name change, something he said he is in favor of. "Some of it the President is going to be able to do on his own, but it obviously takes legislative action from Congress, so once it gets filed, it will go through the committe process, I suspect it will be widely supported. I don't even know why Democrats would oppose renaming it to the gulf of America. I suspect they would oppose it because it was Trump's idea, it will go through the legislative process, and go to the President for signature." Steube explained. But even if Congress does manage to pass a bill to officially change the name, its not going to be as simple as slapping a sticker over the word Mexico. A new law could change the name for us here in the United States, but other countries that border the Gulf, like Cuba or Mexico aren't bound by those rules, which means they could choose to keep the name the way it is. For more perspective, we spoke with Florida Gulf Coast University's Professor of Geology, Jacqueline Salmond. She explained that ironically, renaming geographic features isn't really about Geography. She believes it has more to do with politics than anything else. "Then we could be in a situation where the countries that wish to side with the US would call it the US name, and the countries that wish to side with Mexico would use the Mexican name and then we would have different allegiances across the region depending on who you would like to stand next door to..."Salmond said, "But in terms of sort of the Philosophy of it, I think changing the name does send a strong political message, so I can understand why it has gained interest recently."Salmond also explained, a name change like this sends a message to the rest of the world as well. "Its a message of sort of claiming territory, even if its not physically claiming territory, that's the intention, the idea is something that America owns, even if changing the name doesn't make that a reality, but there would be a perception of the influence that America has over the region." She added. But digging a little deeper in the subject shows that changing the name of an American Geographic feature has happened before. In fact back in 2015, President Obama and the Secretary of the Interior used a 1947 law to rename Mt Mckinley - our country's tallest mountain. It was changed back to its native name "Denali" a change that the National Park Service did not object to.