In the BCP 47 standard, en-US[1][2] would mean the name in English suitable for the United States, aka “American English”. name:*=* subkeys vary based on what speakers of the language or dialect would tend to use for whatever reason – usually for linguistic reasons, but not always. Very often the name:*=* tags of international features aren’t direct translations from one subkey to another.
Regardless, most of the discussion has centered around using subkeys of alt_name or official_name – recognizing that, even within a single dialect, a place can have multiple names for various reasons. The reason to avoid name:en-US=* is that a bare name=* is for the common or primary name as it appears in the real world, not necessarily the official name on paper, so any name:en-US=* should also reflect this on-the-ground reality. But an alt_name:en-US=* would have no such constraint, other than limiting it to notable names, as opposed to the mundane typos or idiosyncrasies of private eccentrics.[3]
There’s also a counterproposal to map a second gulf in the gulf. That would presumably entail sticking “Gulf of America” in name=*, which once again is for the primary name in the primary language(s). I’d expect that to quickly become mired in controversy.
Since around 2018, the convention in OSM has been BCP 47 codes for
name:*=*subkeys. If you see anyone referring toen_USwith an underscore, that syntax is from a different standard, ISO/IEC 15897. ↩︎Apple operating systems mix the two syntaxes in some cases. For example, if the user sets the system language to “English (Australian)” and the system region to “Mexico”, iOS 18 will incorrectly report
en-AU_MXas the current locale identifier, even if you specifically ask for a BCP 47 identifier. ↩︎Like the one unnamed individual who for years has reportedly been pestering the Board on Geographic Names about renaming the gulf after America. No word on this person’s identity, but I guess they no longer need to do that anymore. ↩︎