Photo: View of Chicago Skyline across Lake Michigan from West Beach, Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana taken by Indianadunes, Wikimedia Commons
Both the names of Michigan and Illinois are Indigenous names. “Michigan” comes from Ojibwe for “great water,” and “Illinois” comes from another Algonquian language, the Illini, or “the men” of the Indigenous Illinois Trade Confederacy that once ruled the region.
“A Great Lake deserves to be named after a Great State,” said the Governor.
Pritzker could be trolling President Trump for demanding the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the "Gulf of America."
Perhaps Pritzker is overstepping his bounds. After all, three other states also have shorelines on Lake Michigan: Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan itself. They might all have an opinion about Pritzker’s declaration.
In fact, Illinois has the second-shortest shoreline, 63 miles, on the Lake. Indiana has only 45. Wisconsin, to the north of Illinois, has 815 miles of shoreline and the state of Michigan itself has 1,640 miles of shoreline of the lake from which it gets its name.
Illinois’ claim to fame is possessing the largest city on Lake Michigan–Chicago (Shikaakwa in the Illinois language).
Though President Trump is attempting to erase the Nahuatl name for the Gulf of Mexico, Governor Pritzker’s change will merely exchange one Algonquin name for another. Of course, he risks inciting a football rivalry if he makes good on his second claim on the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and its NFL team the Green Bay Packers.
He closed with "Bear Down," the Chicago Bears' motto.
Green Bay is also a city along Lake Michigan, 120 miles north of the state of Illinois at its closest point. Pritzker declared that possessing Green Bay is necessary for Illinois’ defense, much like Trump claiming Greenland is necessary for the defense of the United States.
Unlike the other four Great Lakes, Lake Michigan is the only one entirely inside the United States, so this change will not affect Canada nor its province of Ontario. Its likely, though, the Canadians will have an opinion on the matter.
Manhattan island, one of New York City's boroughs, also carries an Algonquin name, meaning "mountainous island."
Sources: Wikipedia
