A letter from an "average Joe" sparked a three-year proposal for Lake Burley Griffin to be renamed, a plan rejected by the powerful committee overseeing Canberra's national monuments.
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Named for Canberra's original planner, architect and landscape designer Walter Burley Griffin, the inclusion of Griffin's middle name has left some with the impression the American's surname was Burley Griffin.
The Canberra National Memorials Committee, with former prime minister Tony Abbott as chair, voted against a proposal to change the name to Lake Griffin in 2014, National Capital Authority documents obtained under freedom of information rules reveal.
An unnamed member of the public wrote to the committee, which also includes the Opposition Leader, territories minister and government and opposition Senate leaders, in 2011, arguing for the name change to end confusion and potentially extend naming honours to Griffin's wife Marion Mahony Griffin. She collaborated on planning for Canberra, working in partnership with her husband to produce watercolours of the designs.
In considering proposals from the public for new national memorials, the committee seeks a range of professional, administrative and community advice.
"In considering proposals, the [committee] seeks the advice from the NCA as secretariat and land manager," a report prepared for Senate estimates shows.
"In October 2014, the authority unanimously agreed to recommend the name of 'Lake Burley Griffin' remain as is."
A spokeswoman said the infrequency of the committee's meetings meant the proposal took years to reach a decision. The member of the public who proposed the name change received a response from the authority.
The lake was inaugurated on October 17, 1964, by then prime minister Sir Robert Menzies. The name change debate emerged again before the lake's 50th anniversary celebrations in October 2014.
Menzies had championed the lake during his record tenure as prime minister and wrote that he wanted to ensure there was a national monument dedicated to the capital's original designer.
Debate about the name dates to the lake's earliest development. Menzies' 1970 memoir, The Measure of the Years, includes a retelling of interior minister Gordon Freeth's reports to Menzies of "widespread feeling" that the lake should be named for Menzies himself.
The suggestion was rejected.
"I want to have the lake called Lake Burley Griffin," Menzies wrote. "It was so named and has given Griffin a memorial which no man ever so handsomely deserved."
Lake Burley Griffin first appeared on the map in May 1962, through inclusion in the Commonwealth Gazette. In 2014, Heather Henderson, the daughter of Sir Robert Menzies and a Canberra resident, said the name should be corrected but not changed to honour her father.
Lake Burley Griffin Guardians convenor Juliet Ramsay said the group believed the name should "absolutely" remain.
"Walter Burley Griffin always signed his name 'Walter Burley Griffin'," she said.
"The fact that we've always known it by the name means it would be a shame to change it now. Just calling it Lake Griffin I don't think would be a correction."
Ms Ramsay said extending the name to include Marion could be problematic. She called for a statue of the couple to be commissioned for Regatta Point.
"In some ways I think there's a reasonable argument because she helped design the prize-winning design for Canberra. But the subsequent work on the plan seemed to be just by him.
"He was the one who had to stand up to the bureaucrats and had the terrible time they gave him. Both of them near the stone plan of the lake would be fitting I think," she said.
