NEWS ANALYSIS : Mexico Looks North in Flap Over Its Name : Latin America: Nationalists complain the country’s official moniker owes too much to the United States. Now politics has entered the debate.

What’s in a name?

A lot, particularly for ardent Mexican nationalists wary of their country’s ever-firmer ties to the United States, Mexico’s northern neighbor and historic adversary.

With the North American Free Trade Agreement scheduled to take effect on Saturday, Mexican lawmakers eager to assert “sovereignty” in the coming era of bolstered trans-border commerce have taken up a peculiar cause: They want to change their nation’s official name.

While this republic of 87 million is known worldwide as “Mexico,” its formal title is Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos --”The Mexican United States,” a largely ceremonial designation.

Now, after more than a century of often furious debate, the Mexican Congress is studying proposals to abridge the nation’s name to the more catchy “Mexico.”

For some, the formal name, infrequently invoked, seems too suggestive of the other United States: “the colossus of the north,” the “imperialist” English-speaking republic that long has been a maddening source here of alternating scorn and envy, a despised foe and reluctantly admired alter ego.

Mexico’s official title--adopted as part of the 1824 constitution in the post-independence era--was, scholars agree, an imitation of the federalist designation of the United States of America. In Mexico’s heavily centralized system, however, regional governments have never enjoyed the autonomy of American states.

Generations of patriots have lamented that gaffe, particularly in the wake of the disastrous war between the United States and Mexico in 1846-48. That conflict cost a humiliated Mexico half of its national territory--including most of what is now California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.

Nationalist sentiments run so deep here that politicians must periodically reassert their vows to “defend national sovereignty,” a coded reference for standing up to Washington. This in a nation facing no imminent threat of invasion--except, of course, of the fast-food, pop music, mega-mall, made-in-the-U.S.A. variety.

Luis Donaldo Colosio, presidential candidate of the long-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, affirmed his commitment to “sovereignty” on half a dozen occasions during his Dec. 8 nomination acceptance speech.

On Dec. 10, distinguished experts presented their views on the thorny question of the nation’s name before the Chamber of Deputies’ Commission on Government and Constitutional Points. Emilio O. Rabasa, a former secretary of foreign affairs, urged lawmakers to revise the nation’s title and exorcise the “original sin” blamed on the constitutional framers of 1824.

But with presidential elections planned for August, critics have dismissed the name-change suggestion as a political ploy--one that may have backfired.

Few question that President Carlos Salinas de Gortari--whose party controls Congress--is behind the initiative. But his intentions remain murky. Some speculate that the president, who must step down next year, may be attempting to burnish for posterity his nationalist image, which has been dimmed by his free-trade advocacy and other conciliatory overtures toward the United States.

Whatever the underlying purpose, the episode has alienated both the opposition and even some hard-line ruling-party nationalists--presumably those who should be most pleased.

Doubters have questioned the wisdom of investing the time and expense to change names. Besides amending 18 constitutional articles, lawmakers would have to alter the national bank notes, coins, seals and other documents.

In a nation battling poverty and other social and economic woes, many wonder if it is worth the trouble to correct a phrasing largely consigned to bureaucratic use. “We were born and baptized with the name of ‘Mexico,’ ” said Antonio Martinez Baez, a former senator and noted constitutional scholar alarmed at the suggestion. “How can we change our name to something that is already there?”