Why America is called America？?

Question

Why America is called America, and isa american history question? Do anyone know?Thank you

Answer 1

Did Amerigo Vespucci discover America?
No! On 12 October 1492 Christopher Columbus was the first to reach land to the west of America in the Bahamas. Christopher Columbus was followed by Vespucci and many other explorers who were all searching for a passage to the Indies. In 1507 the German mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller, printed the first map that used the name 'America' for the New World clearly named after Amerigo Vespucci.

Answer 2

The naming of the land mass of half our globe by no means can come to be unless it is a name that is a contribution of many diverse parties congealing into a living word whose name has all within it. Jesus was said to have spoken Aramaic and inspired the borrowing of amorphic English (originally a Germanic tradition) so eschatologically profound that Aramaican English, together with the Medici supporters of their bank employees, Amerigys and Venus DiMilo( a lowly teller and maidat the bank of Italy), and fused with the Icelandic dubbing it Amerika in the thirteenth century, America it is named.

What's peculiar about this is that Iceland and Ireland are often mistaken in historical Americorrecting, the Bank of Italy, is now known here as B of A, and desputing the legendary Amerigys is always auieted by so many Soth American rainforest natives that speak ancient Aramaican...in italiics!

Answer 3

After Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer.

Answer 4

It was named for Amerigo Vespucci, an explorer who was the first person to identify North and South America as separate from Asia.

Answer 5

It was named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci

Answer 6

The earliest known use of the name America for this particular landmass dates from 1507. It appears on a globe and a large map created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. An accompanying book, Cosmographiae Introductio, explains that the name was derived from the Latinized version of the explorer Amerigo Vespucci's name, Americus Vespucius, in its feminine form, America, as the other continents all have Latin feminine names.

Vespucci's role in the naming issue, like his exploratory activity, is unclear and most probably a tale. Some sources say that he was unaware of the widespread use of his name to refer to the new landmass. Others hold that he promulgated a story that he had made a secret voyage westward and sighted land in 1491, a year before Columbus. If he did indeed make such claims, they backfired, and only served to prolong the ongoing debate on whether the "Indies" were really a new land, or just an extension of Asia.

However, as Dr. Basil Cottle (Author, Dictionary of Surnames, 1967) points out, new countries or continents are never named after a person's first name, always after their second name (with the exception of some places named after the first names of monarchs or princes, such as Carolina). Thus, America should really have become Vespucci Land or Vespuccia if the Italian explorer really gave his name to the continent. Christopher Columbus, who had first brought the region's existence to the attention of Renaissance era voyagers, had died in 1506 (believing, to the end, that he'd discovered and colonized part of India) and could not protest Waldseemüller's decision.


Map of America by Jonghe, c. 1770.A few alternative theories regarding the landmass' naming have been proposed, but none of them has achieved any widespread acceptance.

One alternative, first advanced by Jules Marcou in 1875 and later recounted by novelist Jan Carew, is that the name America derives from the district of Amerrique in Nicaragua. The gold-rich district of Amerrique was purportedly visited by both Vespucci and Columbus, for whom the name became synonymous with gold. According to Marcou, Vespucci later applied the name to the New World, and even changed the spelling of his own name from Alberigo to Amerigo to reflect the importance of the discovery.

Another theory, first proposed by a Bristol antiquary and naturalist, Alfred Hudd, in 1908 was that America is derived from Richard Amerike, a merchant from Bristol, who is believed to have financed John Cabot's voyage of discovery from England to Newfoundland in 1497 as found in some documents from Westminster Abbey a few decades ago. Supposedly, Bristol fishermen had been visiting the coast of North America for at least a century before Columbus' voyage and Waldseemüller's maps are alleged to incorporate information from the early English journeys to North America. The theory holds that a variant of Amerike's name appeared on an early English map (of which however no copies survive) and that this was the true inspiration for Waldseemüller.

Answer 7

Well I was taught the first one in school. But along with that I was also taught that story about George Washington and the cherry tree. If you haven't heard it, it's a hoot but not the truth. And I never did believe the story about Columbus discovering America. I guess they thought our little minds couldn't handle the truth so that much of what I learned as history in grade school I'm just not too sure about.

Answer 8

It was named after an explorer by the name of Amerigo Vespucious.

Answer 9

After the cartographer ( ? ) Amerigo Vespucci. ( Far as I know. ) Could've been called ' The Republic of Bud ' as well if you like. Beerbellied, t -shirt type giving you a thumbs up, howzat grab you?

Answer 10

Amerigo Vespucci.
Google the name.