MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose six-year term comes to an end next week, said he’s sending Congress a constitutional amendment to change the nation’s name to one that reminds people less of the United States.
Calderon proposed shortening the official name to Mexico from the United Mexican States during a speech Thursday in Mexico City. The decision in 1824 to adopt its current name was based on the example of the United States of America, and the name is outdated because it’s used only for formal occasions, he said.
The name Mexico comes from the Nahuatl indigenous term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire of the 15th and 16th centuries that once included the nation’s present-day capital.
“The current name of our country is the result of a historical moment," Calderon said in a speech at the presidential residence of Los Pinos. “It was a product of circumstance that no longer exists. Mexico doesn’t need a name that emulates another country and that none of us use on a daily basis."