In May it was announced that Palm Beach Airport in Florida is to be renamed to honour US President Donald J Trump. From today it will be known as the Donald J Trump International Airport – the new call sign is DJT.
His son Eric was exuberant on X in his praise of the decision, saying it was a great honour for his father.
It’s not unusual to have airports named after people.
In the US there are many, including John F Kennedy International (JFK) in New York, as well as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, named after the 40th US President. California even has the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, named after the Hollywood actor.
For the first time, I am extremely proud to share the OFFICIAL logo for the Donald J. Trump International Airport in Palm Beach, Florida. There is no person more deserving of this incredible honor than @realDonaldTrump! Congratulations Dad!
Looking forward to seeing flights… pic.twitter.com/QUyPKJYixy
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) May 5, 2026
Closer to home, there’s the George Best Belfast City Airport, Liverpool John Lennon Airport and Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, all named after influential figures or cultural icons.
Airports quite often are named, or renamed, to honour people who have died, although that’s not always the case. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Texas was named while former US president George HW Bush was still alive.
It’s also hard to forget that in 2017 Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport in Madeira was named after the footballer who was born on the Portuguese island.
That was not without controversy and became the subject of much ridicule after the now infamous bust of Ronaldo (below) was unveiled at the renaming ceremony, which has since been replaced.
Apart from the accolade, the honoree does not benefit financially from the naming. Until now, perhaps.
Which brings us back to Donald Trump. While his son Eric said it is an honour bestowed on his father, it is in fact a business deal for the Trump Organization.
In February DTTM Operations LLC, the holding company for business-related trademarks owned by Donald Trump, filed three trademark applications to reserve his name in relation to airport branding.
They were filed on an “intent to use” basis, which stakes a claim on a name before commercial use where an applicant has “a good faith intention to do so in the future”.
The filing covers seven classes of goods and services, including watches, jewellery; non-monetary coins; cuff links; handbags, travel bags and suitcases; animal carriers, pet clothing, shopping bags; “plastic slippers used in the airport environment when going through security to keep feet and socks clean, dry and sanitary”; t-shirts, hats, hoodies.
It also covers airport construction and repairs, aircraft repair and maintenance, as well as fueling services; check-in services; shuttle buses; air traffic control services; parking; airport lounges; security and baggage screening.
So, pretty much everything you could ever think would be used in an airport will be branded Donald J Trump International Airport. This means that any entity that wants to use the trademarked name of Donald J Trump International Airport would have to be granted permission by DTTM Operations LLC for the use in return for a license fee or other compensation.
Airports are ordinarily owned and operated by government entities, and their names, when registered, are generally held by those authorities. The Palm Beach Airport name change will reportedly cost the operator $5.5m for new signage, systems updates, and staff uniforms etc.
In early May The Palm Beach Post reported that on a visit to the area, Mr Trump said he has plans for the airport.
“We have a lot of things in store. A lot of tremendous elements are going to be added to the airport, making it bigger and better,” Mr Trump said.
“I don’t think there’ll be anything as good as your airport will be anywhere in the country.”
The agreement for the airport is between Palm Beach County and the trademark holder authorising commercial use of the name Donald J Trump International Airport. The airport has the right to use the name, but not exclusively. That means the Trump Organization can license other airports to use the name in future.
This agreement allows Palm Beach County to use Mr Trump’s name, image, and likeness in promotional materials tied to the airport, subject to approval by the licensor.
For its part Palm Beach International Airport has said that “the name change does not alter ownership, governance, legal status or operational control of the airport. Palm Beach County will continue to oversee all airport policies, finances and strategic decisions. This is a branding change only”.
On its FAQ website page, the airport addresses some concerns that people may have about the name change, and particularly for local area residents, who will foot the bill for the cost of becoming Donald J Trump International Airport.
It states that “while higher political visibility may support advocacy efforts for discretionary infrastructure funding and President Trump has publicly expressed support for continued improvements and modernization, the name change itself does not create or guarantee additional funding opportunities. While no new funding has been formally announced, the airport remains committed to pursuing all available funding opportunities to support the airport’s long-term growth, safety and passenger experience”.
Open question there as to what that might be worth
Trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who is based in Washington DC, has reviewed the licensing agreement and says that filing a trademark application is theoretically a good business and legal strategy if you are a business and you are about to use a name for a particular product or service.
“The thing that made it unusual is that typically when an airport, in the United States at least, is renamed in an honorary capacity for an individual, that individual or the company associated with them is not typically filing trademarks because it’s an honorary naming, it’s not a business venture.
“So, for example, John F Kennedy Airport in New York City, there’s no trademarks that the family owns for John F Kennedy International Airport or JFK.”
He said that the licensing agreement also provides that any goods sold at the airport must be through vendors pre-approved by the Trump Organization, and that it gives the company the right to audit the airport’s books.
He explained that in the licensing agreement it said that the airport and its vendors could sell merchandise that is using Donald J Trump International Airport, the name or the logo, and that any of the profits made from that merchandise sold by the airport, on airport premises, would not be passed to the Trump Organization.
He added: “That said, if the license agreement leaves open the possibility that if Trump Org wanted to sell its own merchandise off of airport premises, it could, and there was no restriction on where those profits could go.
“So that’s sort of the delineation of the licensing.”
Mr Gerben added; “in this case, the unique factor is that the Trump board filed these trademarks and in some capacity, outside of the airport, could certainly use them and potentially profit from them.”
As the licensing agreement is not exclusive to the Palm Beach airport, if Mr Trump were to convince another airport to be renamed, he could relicense the trademarks to that airport and have a separate deal with them, according to Mr Gerben.
“There’s an indirect benefit when you have an airport named after yourself”, he added.
While in this instance the law allowing the renaming of the airport required that the Trump Organization cannot make money off of it directly “obviously, if you’re able to control the vendor that is used, and you can point business in a certain direction, you may not have dollars and cents profitability, but you may get certain goodwill from the company that you’re directing the business to.
“So, what is that worth? I think there’s an open question there as to what that might be worth,” Mr Gerben said.
Donald Trump has been keen to have his name and image added to government buildings and institutions as well as US passports, the National Parks pass, a commemorative 24-carat gold coin, and even Washington DC construction sites.
Already this year, a section of road from the Palm Beach Airport to the Mar-a-Lago estate was renamed Donald J Trump Boulevard. Florida Governor Republican Ron De Santis has also approved the ‘President Donald J Trump Highway’ in southern Florida, which stretches roughly 200km from West Palm Beach on the east to Fort Myers on the west coast of the state.
Trump’s ‘toponymic narcissism’ is about promoting the brand
Prof Reuben Rose-Redwood, Associate Dean at the Faculty of Social Sciences at University of Victoria British Columbia, in Canada, has coined the term ‘toponymic narcissism’ – the practice of naming places, institutions, or landmarks after oneself.
Prof Rose-Redwood says that there is a long history of naming places after those who have wielded political, economic, and cultural power.
“In the United States, there are numerous cities, towns, streets, and other places named in honour of past presidents. Yet the scope of Trump’s obsession with naming places in honour of himself and branding the world in his own image is truly unprecedented in US history.
He said that Donald Trump’s “fixation” on renaming places after himself is “a textbook case of ‘toponymic narcissism’, which refers to the obsessive desire for self-aggrandisement through place naming.
Prof Rose-Redwood said that in the case of Mr Trump and his supplicants, “this has all the hallmarks of the cult of personality that is typically associated with authoritarian leaders combined with the self-promotion that popular culture personifies in the figure of the huckster or snake-oil salesman.
“Trump seems to view the federal government as if it were his own personal corporation and appears to relish stamping the Trump brand on the American psyche in whatever way he can as an assertion of raw power.”
He added that the fleeting nature of Donald Trump’s renaming efforts is already evident with the removal of his name from the Kennedy Center.
“However, the Palm Beach airport in Florida that will bear his name may have more staying power given the millions of dollars that will be expended to add Trump’s name on all the new signage.
He continued that commemorative place naming usually involves bestowing honour on the individual being commemorated.
“Yet Trump’s toponymic narcissism is not about honour at all, it’s rather about promoting the Trump brand and paying tribute to the Grand Leader. It’s a testament to how low US political culture has fallen as the country marks its 250th anniversary.”
President Trump shows clear understanding of larger role place names play
Fellow and Past President of the American Association of Geographers and Chancellor’s Professor in the Dept of Geography and Sustainability at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Prof Derek H Alderman says that Donald Trump is building on his experience as a branding expert and applying his decades of corporate and real estate brand development to the political arena and the renaming of national symbols.
He said that this transfer of the commercial approach is “unsettling” because America’s place names are important civic symbols meant to serve the wider cultural needs of communities, not strictly the possessions or personal assets of a single leader.
Prof Alderman said that many analysts may explain Mr Trump’s penchant for attaching his name and brand to so many things (and his openness to others naming places after him) is largely driven by his ego.
“Some of the naming of places for Trump by political supporters in certain cities and states serves as a way for them to signal loyalty and gain favour from him, especially since they recognise how much the President likes to see his name up in lights.
“Attaching Trump’s name or image to public institutions allows supporters to demonstrate allegiance to him and to the political worldview he represents. But more broadly, they are not simply celebrating Trump, but also using his name and imagery to reclaim public space and attention from so called “woke” progressives who have been working for years to remove traditional names from places and apply the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion to place names and other national symbols.
“In this respect, places named and claimed for Trump are treated as a form of partisan retaliation or revenge by some supporters.
But, Prof Alderman contends that treating Trump-related naming efforts simply as matters of vanity or ego “misses this bigger point: the President shows a clear understanding of the larger role that place names play in social life.
“He is clearly using naming as a ‘technology of power,’ a weapon for conferring legitimacy and public visibility on a particular ideological-political agenda over another.”
Bill aims to ‘put an end to this narcissism’
As a result of the renaming of the US Institute of Peace and the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Board’s decision to add President Donald Trump’s name to the building and website, several Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, introduced the ‘Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego Act’ in the US Congress in January.
At the time, Mr Sanders said: “It’s no secret that President Trump is undermining democracy and moving this country toward authoritarianism. Part of that strategy is to create the myth of the ‘Great Leader’ by naming public buildings after himself – something that dictators have done throughout history.
“For Trump to put his name on federal buildings is arrogant and it is illegal. We must put an end to this narcissism – and that’s what this bill does.”
The bill applies retroactively and requires that any federal asset currently bearing the name of a sitting president be returned to its previous name as defined by federal law. It’s in the preliminary stages of the legislative process, but if the law is passed it would “prohibit the naming, renaming, designating, or redesignating of any Federal building, land, or other asset in the name of a sitting President”.
However, the bill faces a deeply divided Congress, and it is highly unlikely to give its approval to such a law. Ironically, the legislation would eventually need the approval and signature of President Donald J Trump, which is something that he probably won’t want to have his name on.
While naming airports after prominent figures is common, they have generally been purely honorary and symbolic rather than a commercial opportunity for the honoree. The renaming of Palm Beach International Airport however is a significant departure from that and reflects something more than a name change.
In a time of personality-driven politics public spaces, it seems, can be used not just for commemoration but also for branding, power and shaping a personal legacy.
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