So where are you heading?
I am going to America
Oh cool, what country in America?
What do you mean?
Err… you know Peru, Brazil
They are not in America?
What?
They are in south America!
Ok…….
America the land of the free…
Kind of an arrogant statement when you really think about it.
I mean America is not just the US it includes loads of other countries like Canada, Mexico,
Argentina and yet the only people we call Americans are people from the US.
I know when people say America they mean the United states of America but still.
It’s not like Germany calls itself Europe or England calls itself britain (although
Americans sometimes do that last one).
So why is America called America, well our journey begins back in 1507 the German cartographer
(map maker) Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands in
the West "America".
Supposedly after the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, whose Latin name was Americus Vespucius.
Having a Latin name was important at the time, because Latin was the language of the educated
throughout the western world.
Americus was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and map maker who first showed that
Brazil and the West Indies were not part of Asia's eastern outskirts as initially guessed
from Columbus' voyages, but instead an entirely new and separate landmass.
So that is how the continent of America got its name, but what about the country?
Well we fast forward to the late 1700s and find the 13 British colonies breaking away
from the British empire and essentially becoming 13 little autonomous states.
The colonists were now no longer British and needed a new identity.
The 13 colonies working as independent nations was not working out very well, as having different
currencies and trading standards, among other things caused chaos!
So in the interest of unity and national defense the states came together in what is known
as the United states of America and thus the people became known as Americans – which
was not a problem as the rest of the nations on the continent – apart from the natives
– were still controlled by colonial powers.
It may seem surprising, but nobody's really sure who came up with the phrase, “United
States of America.”
Most people believe it was likely Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin
Franklin, or possibly a guy named Oliver Ellsworth.
The American national archives say that the first formal use was by Jefferson in his first
draft of the declaration of independence – but this was taken out in the final draft and
replaced with - “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America.”.
So that’s that.
The reason America is called America is it is named after an explorer and the reason
people from the US are called Americans is that they claimed the name first!
If you come from another country which calls Americans by a different name, or have something
interesting to point out, why not leave us a comment!
I love hearing from you guys!
Thanks for watching