The all-party support for changing the name of Kerala to Keralam and the Union Government’s recent approval of the proposal raises questions about the historicity of the term Kerala. The historical difference between the terms is ambiguous at best. From a linguistic perspective, both Kerala and Keralam refer to a place/land. Hermann Gundert’s Malayalam dictionary (1872) mentions both Kerala and Keralam while defining the term “keram” (coconut tree). One common definition of both terms is also “the land of coconut trees.” Gundert takes a traditional view of Keralam as the land that lies between Gokarnam and Kanyakumari and mentions the legendary text “Keralolpatti” (The Origin of Kerala). The founding legend of Kerala is associated with Sage Parasurama (an incarnation of Visnu) who slew 21 generations of Kshatriyas and flung the blood-strained axe to the ocean, carving out a strip of coastal land called Kerala or Keralam (according to mythology), with the above-mentioned northern and southern boundaries. The history of the origins of Kerala has attracted historical scrutiny even as it is hard to determine its historical veracity. It is likely that at least some portions of the text are of latter-day origins and a response to the European ascendance on the Malabar coast. The historicity of the text is less important than how it has been received and what place it occupies in the historical, temporal, and spatial imagination of the Malayalis.