Why did King Alexander rename the country Yugoslavia in 1929?

In 1929, King Alexander I renamed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes to Yugoslavia as part of a broader effort to consolidate his ethnically and politically divided state.12

Following years of intense political instability and the 1928 assassination of Croatian deputies in parliament, Alexander established a royal dictatorship to bypass the legislative stalemate. By changing the country's name, he aimed to suppress local nationalisms—specifically Serbian, Croatian, and Slovene identities—and replace them with a unified "Yugoslav" (South Slav) patriotism.2341

To further weaken regional loyalties, he reorganized the state into nine administrative districts called banovine, which were deliberately drawn to cut across traditional regional boundaries. These measures were intended to foster a centralized, cohesive national identity, though they ultimately failed to reconcile the deep-seated conflicts between the various ethnic groups within the state.341