For what it’s worth, the notion that the order applies to only part of the gulf is just one possible interpretation of the awkwardly worded order, and maybe a little bit of wishful thinking. Months down the line, what will probably matter more for the purpose of official_name:*=* is what the Interior Department and Board on Geographic Names end up actually designating, and what other agencies end up using the name for.[1] Meanwhile, name:*=* hopefully stays above the fray. There’s that wishful thinking again.
Ironically, modeling it as a separate point feature would make it much more prominent than modeling it as a mere tag on the main feature with seven qualifiers hanging off it. Renderers would probably have the two labels collide each other out unpredictably at some zoom levels, potentially preferring the neologism over the internationally accepted name, because we don’t have an established tag for the relative size of a sea. Believe it or not, some renderers might even break the tie alphabetically by accident.
Pssst: GNIS is not the federal government’s only authoritative gazetteer. That would be too easy. ↩︎