Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday sent a proposal to the Parliament to change the official name of the country.
The North American country's constitution adopts the Spanish name Estados Unidos Mexicanos, which translates as "United Mexican States," but Calderon wants to change it to just Mexico, by the name the country is known the world over.
Explaining his move at a news conference, the outgoing President said he did not want his motherland to "emulate that of other nations," an apparent reference to its powerful northern neighbor, the United States.
"Forgive me for the expression, but Mexico's name is Mexico," Calderon told reporters at the presidential palace.
According to the conservative leader, "it is time for Mexicans to take back the beauty and simplicity of our fatherland's name: Mexico. A name we chant, we sing, that makes us happy and fills us with pride."
Having liberated from Spain in 1810, Mexico has a history of changing its official name with a change in the form of government. The country that was known as Imperio Mexicano, or Mexican Empire, was first re-named Estados Unidos Mexicanos in 1824 when the country's post-revolutionary founders looked upon the United States of America as an example of democracy and freedom to name the country after. After switching the names once again in the 19th century, the 1917 federal constitution reverted the country's name to Estados Unidos Mexicanos.
Although the country is addressed universally as Mexico, the name Estados Unidos Mexicanos, or "United Mexican States," is used mostly on Mexican official and federal documents, and on currency.
Mexico is an indigenous word that means "the navel of the moon" in the Nahuatl language, and adopting the name is traced to the ancient Aztec Empire capital of México-Tenochtitlan. The people of the former Spanish colony of New Spain were called Mexicans after they won independence from Spain in 1810. It is not sure if the legislative process that Calderon initiated with his days numbered at the presidential palace will pass through both Houses of the Congress and a majority of Mexico's 31 state legislatures, but it has long been a dream for Calderon.
As a Congressman in 2003, while he was Mexico's Energy Secretary, Calderon unsuccessfully moved a bill in the House suggesting the name change.
A President who has been hell-bent on fighting organized crime and drug-trafficking in the country since he came to power in 2006, Calderon is leaving office on December 1 having maintained a low unemployment rate and holding the Mexican economy stable amid the global economic downturn. President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto led the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), back to power after a decade.
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