Is Mexico planning to change its name?

The official name of the U.S.’s southern neighbor is the United Mexican States. Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose six-year term comes to an end next week, has sent a proposal to the country’s Congress to change that to Mexico. The name Mexico comes from the Nahuatl indigenous term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire of the 15th and 16th centuries that once included the nation’s present-day capital. But why make a change now? “Mexico doesn’t need a name that emulates another country,” said Calderon, “and that none of us use on a daily basis.”