Why the U.S.A is called America, citizens are called Americans...?

Question

America is the whole Continent, therefore all the people born in the American Continent are Americans, right?

America is the whole continent not just U.S.A, and people born in the American Continent are Americans, right?

Answer 1

It's easier to say than United Statesians.

Answer 2

Technically, the continent is referred to as North America rather than simply America. If we were referring to North, Central and South America, we would probably just call them 'the Americas'. If we're referring to people in particular, we'd likely just stick with North/Central/South Americans.

Speaking as a Canadian, I'm not sure that I'd consider it an arrogance or egoism on the part of the U.S., but rather that it's really the simplist thing to call residents of the country-- what else would we call Americans if not Americans?

It's true that some people are kind of frustrated by it, but so long as my noting that I'm North American (which isn't exactly something that I do, since most people would understand that if I said I was Canadian) doesn't leave people thinking that I must live in Maine or something, I'm cool with it.

Answer 3

It's an English thing. When North America was settled, the British colonies there were called the American colonies. After the American Revolution, the word "America" left a bad taste in English mouths. "Canada" became the proper term for Canada, and the other 13 colonies were "America," and occupied by "Americans"... who were used to being defined as seperate from Britain in this way (and part of the reason they could think of themselves as deserving to be independent from Britain in the first place)

Answer 4

Well, "American" is a lot shorter and snappier than "U.S. citizen" or "citizen of the United States." And things like this are highly arbitrary. That's all I can think of. And yes, technically anyone who's native to the Americas can be referred to as "American," though it's generally understood without further elaboration that an American is one who is a citizen of the United States of America.

Looks like the Doctor has the best answer, though. Kudos to her!

Answer 5

We are from the country known as "The United States of America". America is in our name. So that's what we call ourselves. If you can think of something else to call ourselves, I'm all ears.

Answer 6

Yes, but people are ethnocentric. Typically, U.S. citizens only view themselves as Americans.