the very meaning of “Ocean” would have to be changed. Until that time Europeans made a sharp distinction between the Ocean and a sea (mare). There was, in fact, only one Ocean. In Greek mythology it was Oceanus, the great circular stream that was supposed to encompass the disk of the earth. Hence, in English, until about 1650, the Great Outer Sea of Boundless Extent was commonly called the Ocean Sea, from mare oceanum, and was opposed to the Mediterranean inland sea or the other inland seas.
