President Trump recently underscored his desire to have his name appear on the facade of the Kennedy Center with a threat. "Frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close," Trump told reporters. "It'll end up being ripped down." Trump or his supporters have called for the president's name to appear on everything from naval battleships to airports.
It's pretty rare for sitting presidents to stamp their identities on infrastructure, currency and other public assets — though history shows there are a few exceptions. Discussions regarding this issue go all the way back to the first presidential administration. "They were trying to figure out what was the right balance between the prestige required to give this new office respect, but also recognizing that they were not trying to re-create a monarchy," said Lindsay Chervinsky, executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library and author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.
Chervinsky said the issue first came up at the federal level during Washington's presidency around the Coinage Act of 1792. Congress was figuring out what to put on the inaugural American coins, given the habit in Great Britain and other nations of plastering the reigning monarch all over theirs. "The House of Representatives said that the president should not be on currency because of this monarchical tie," Chervinsky said.
Chervinsky said Washington shared their concerns. The president usually shied away from ostentatious self-celebration. "He didn't want a lot of fuss," she said.
But sometimes, Washington didn't seem to mind it. "They did name the federal city Washington to honor him while he was still in office," Chervinsky said. Most administrations have generally kept the names and faces of sitting presidents off public assets since then, viewing it as unseemly.
On the few occasions when a sitting president's name has appeared — such as on dams named for Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Woodrow Wilson — it tended not to be the man in office pushing for it himself. "Usually it is political supporters," Chervinsky said. And the history around the naming process can be fraught.
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