Major international airports rarely change names. The most recent example, Palm Beach International Airport, in Florida, was renamed President Donald J. Trump International Airport in July.
Nashville International has only had its current name since 1988. The airport opened in 1937 as Berry Field — after Col. Harry S. Berry, a World War I veteran who ran the Works Progress Administration in Tennessee — and still uses the three-letter code BNA.
Barring any changes to the naming rules, passengers could be waiting a while before seeing Dolly Parton on their boarding passes.
In the meantime, fans have also called on the General Assembly to revive a previous effort to honor Ms. Parton with a statue on the State Capitol grounds in Nashville — one she politely rebuffed at the time.
“Somewhere down the road several years from now, or perhaps after I’m gone, if you feel I still deserve it, then I’m certain I will stand proud in our great State Capitol as a grateful Tennessean,” she wrote on Instagram in 2021.
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.