Broward voters could be asked in the 2026 election if they want to change the name of the county to “Lauderdale County.”
The idea is being advocated on two fronts, by a Republican state legislator and a Democratic county commissioner, both of whom want to ditch the name the county has used for 110 years.
Their efforts, they said separately, are motivated by a desire for the county to have what they believe would be a more marketable name than the current one.
“Broward needs a better brand,” said state Rep. Chip LaMarca, a former county commissioner and the Republican advocate of the idea. The Democratic champion of the idea is County Commissioner Michael Udine.
“We’re stuck in the middle of the Palm Beaches and Miami-Dade County. Both benefit off their brand,” LaMarca said in an interview. “Broward County is in an optimal place between those two counties to bring more business here. It’s a business issue, a branding issue.”
Udine said Palm Beach County has an advantage that Broward doesn’t: “People know where it is.”
“I’m hearing this over and over again,” Udine recently told his colleagues. “The business community, the economic development community, the transportation community, the tourism community all keep bringing up the concept” of changing the county’s name from Broward to Lauderdale.
LaMarca is introducing a measure in Tallahassee for consideration in the 2026 legislative season. It would call for a referendum next year asking voters if they want to change the county’s name. At the county level, Udine said he would come back to his commission colleagues in coming weeks with a proposal.
Others think it’s a bad idea.
“I think it’s totally wrong to change the name of this county,” said County Commissioner Nan Rich. “I hope it goes nowhere. I see no reason for it. We’re fine as Broward County.”
Rich doesn’t buy the argument that a new name would be a boon to tourism or other economic development. “I don’t see it making any difference whatsoever,” she said. “No one is stopping coming to Broward County because it’s not Lauderdale County. Every single indicator is that we are growing.”
Rich, a former Democratic leader of the Florida Senate, said the idea makes her think of President Donald Trump’s remaking of the White House. “We are getting rid of our history, like when they tore down the East Wing,” she said.
Worth it?
James Ross, CEO of Broward-based James Ross Advertising, said he doesn’t see a return for what it would cost to make such a change.
“I don’t understand how they could say one (name) is better than the other without actual data. Not just what people tell them, but real data,” he said.
Ross said rebranding is expensive. “You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on rebrands. And depending on how deep it is, think of how many areas it says Broward County. What are you going to do, are you going to replace everything? It just costs so much money,” he said.
Ross has owned two marketing and advertising agencies during the past 30 years, and specializes in branding, messaging and bringing products to market for companies around the world, and is a board member of publicly-held companies.
In the case of the county name, he said the money would be better spent elsewhere. “Why even go there? There’s so many other things to spend money on in this county. Put the money where the money’s needed,” he said.
LaMarca said he didn’t think there would be much cost to the change. “Some signs will have to change,” he said, adding that “the economic impact of a brand like this I believe would bring in far more than any cost to make name changes.”
The economic impact statement LaMarca’s office filed along with the legislation listed the cost as “undetermined,” adding that “there is a two-year transition period for the county and no new cost put on the county to replace common items. However, the understanding is they will need to replace signage and other items, and they can do that over time.”
Under the category of “new revenues that would not exist but for the passage of the bill,” it estimates a revenue increase from the name change of $200 million in the first fiscal year and $216 million in the second fiscal year. It didn’t detail the data used for the forecast, but said the “estimated revenue increase is a very conservative forecast of less than 1% of the total employment revenue for the county.”
Raised before
LaMarca has long advocated for changing the county’s name.
He said he first raised the subject in 2011, his first full year as a county commissioner. LaMarca leaves the state House of Representatives after the 2026 elections because of term limits. Given that it will be his last legislative session next year, LaMarca said he wanted to try to give voters a chance to decide on the question.
LaMarca filed the proposals as a local bill with the Broward Legislative Delegation on Oct. 17.
On Oct. 21, Udine said he would in coming weeks propose to his colleagues a referendum to change the county’s name from Broward to Lauderdale. He told the other commissioners that he was alerting them so the idea could “kind of percolate a little bit.”
Udine also began posting about the idea on social media where responses have been mixed, with opponents outnumbering supporters.
Historic name
The county was founded in 1915, combining parts of Palm Beach and Dade counties. (Dade County became Miami-Dade County in 1997 after voters approved the switch, a change similar to what LaMarca and Udine are seeking.)
Broward County was named after Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, who served as the state’s 19th governor in the early part of the 20th Century.
Jeff Atwater, a former Florida Senate president whose district included part of Broward County and was twice elected state chief financial officers, said in a telephone interview he was “a little bit caught off guard” by the calls for a name change.
Atwater is a great-grandson of Governor Broward. “To be honest, I’d be saddened,” he said. “I think it would be kind of disappointing to let go of that bit of history. I would be saying this if you were asking me about Levy County or Hamilton County or or any of the others. …
“Understanding all of these names is the tapestry that is knitted together that created the state that we are today,” Atwater said. “Extracting one … begins to pull at the threads of the tapestry.”
Atwater is also skeptical of the purported benefits of brand awareness. “We’re not talking about a county in the midst of the Sahara desert. We’re talking about a county in the midst of an extraordinarily broad and vibrant economic engine in South Florida and to imagine today that people today can’t find it … I would find somewhat surprising.”
Five communities have Lauderdale or a derivation in their names: Fort Lauderdale, Lauderhill, Lauderdale Lakes, North Lauderdale and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. (In 1838, during the Second Seminole War, Maj. William Lauderdale, leading the Tennessee Volunteers, arrived at the New River in South Florida, where he established a fort.)
Udine cited the use of Lauderdale in some city names as a plus for the renaming.
Atwater, however, cited it as a reason the idea might not advance. There are 26 other cities, towns and villages in the county. “I would frankly be surprised if those communities, those cities, those municipalities rolled over for the naming of the county” with a name so closely associated with one major city, he said.
Problematic history
Neither LaMarca nor Udine cited the controversial history of the county’s namesake in their desire to change the name.
Broward has long been known, and criticized, for the draining of parts of the Everglades to create land for agriculture and development. He also was a champion of a centralized state university system, fought for strict child-labor laws, had previously been a sheriff of Duval County, cleaning up after a corrupt predecessor, and helped run munitions to people who fought to free Cuba from Spain.
But about a decade ago, new information came to light after a researcher discovered text of a speech Broward delivered to the Legislature in 1907 that revealed segregationist views and his call for creation of a separate country for Black people.
Atwater said descendants of Broward had no idea about those views. “I think all of our family was both surprised and disappointed that comments were made,” adding that the family would not say that “he might be or have been a man or of that era, of that time. There’s no excuse for that kind of divisiveness.”
He said he hoped that Broward’s life and work are “taken in the context of the whole and that his contributions do speak well in history, and … I think the balance of those contributions to be of great value to the state of Florida.”
In 2017, the TJ Reddick Bar Association, an organization of Black lawyers, called for removal of Broward’s statue from the county Courthouse. The part of the county government run by the County Commission removed the statue and placed it in storage. A county spokesperson said this week it remains in a Deerfield Beach warehouse.
“When you’re at a courthouse, it’s an epicenter of fairness, justice and equality for all, and it’s supposed to represent due process for all,” Harold Pryor, president of the TJ Reddick Bar Association said at the time, adding that he had no plans to advocate for changing the county’s name.
Pryor was elected Broward state attorney in 2020. He declined through a spokesperson to say if he supports placing a name change referendum on the ballot and if he supports changing the county’s name. “I maintain my personal position on this, but I believe it should be up to the citizens of this county to decide.”
Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel
Broward County Commissioner Michael Udine is advocating for a referendum in the 2026 election in which Broward County voters would be asked if they want to change the county’s name to “Lauderdale.” (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Other factors
Outside Broward, and especially to the Republicans who control state government, the name has negative connotations because it’s the last, biggest bastion of Democrats in the state. Gov. Ron DeSantis often uses Broward as an example of things he doesn’t like.
LaMarca, who is one of two Republicans in Tallahassee with parts of Broward in their districts, said some in the county already feel as if they have to downplay the name.
“In many ways Broward County and leadership in Broward County, has run away from that name.”
And some branding already emphasizes “Lauderdale,” rather than Broward. LaMarca pointed to the name of the county-owned “Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.” (He said he’d like to see the county-owned seaport, a major embarkation point for cruises, change its name from Port Everglades to Port Lauderdale. “It’s not in the Everglades,” he said.)
The county’s tourism marketing agency uses the brand name “Visit Lauderdale” to promote the county.
Peter Ricci, a Broward resident and director of the hospitality and tourism management program at Florida Atlantic University, said he would like to see a name similar to Miami-Dade County if a change is to be made.
He said his personal view is that he would like to see something similar to Miami-Dade County. “If we’re going to change the name, we should call it Fort Lauderdale-Broward County to emulate what Miami-Dade has done,” Ricci said. “At least Palm Beach did it correctly originally and named it after their anchor city.”
This report includes information from South Florida Sun Sentinel archives.
Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.