Who called and why did he called AMERICA to the USA?

Answer 1

I am not sure which of two questions you are asking, so I'll try to answer both!

QUESTION ONE: Why were North and South AMERICA given this name? (Why not "Columbia", for instance?)

First, that article dansinger61 pointed to is pretty good about all this. But somehow he has misunderstood some key points in it. For one thing, the "1538" date ONLY refers to the application of the name "America" to NORTH America. The article itself points out that the name was used for the southern continent on the 1507 map of Martin Waldseemüller (he didn't even know about the Northern continent yet).

Note this clip:
"Inspired to publish a new geography that would embrace the New World, the group collectively authored a revision of Ptolemy, which included a Latin translation of Vespucci's purported letter to Soderini, as well as a new map of the world drawn by Waldseemüller. In their resulting Cosmographiae Introductio, printed on April 25, 1507, appear these famous words (as translated from the original Latin; see below) written most likely by one of the two poet-scholars involved in the project:
"But now these parts [Europe, Asia and Africa, the three continents of the Ptolemaic geography] have been extensively explored and a fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespuccius, as will be seen in the appendix: I do not see what right any one would have to object to calling this part after Americus, who discovered it and who is a man of intelligence, [and so to name it] Amerige, that is, the Land of Americus, or America: since both Europa and Asia got their names from women."

There IS some debate about how the Latin should be understood -- it MAY be that the writers had ALREADY heard this name used for these lands, and were offering what they THOUGHT was the explanation.

(But, in any case, as you can see in this clip the argument against it being from "Amerigo" because that was a first name is nonsense.)

Whether Waldseemüller and friends named the continent themselves or heard the name somewhere else, they DO explain how this name could come from Amerigo Vespucci. It was based on the LETTER mentioned above -- in which Vespucci, who had written of his voyages to South America AND who had argued, apparently the first to do so, that this was NOT part of the Far East (as Columbus thought till his death), but a NEW continent. That is, apparently Amerigo Vespucci did discover THAT there was a separate continent here (later found to be TWO).

See more at:
http://geography.about.com/cs/historicalgeog/a/amerigo.htm
http://www.bigoid.de/conquista/biographien/vespucci.htm

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QUESTION TWO: Who decided to use "America" to refer JUST to the U.S.A.?

Many have accused citizens of the U.S. of arrogance for this. But that is based on a misunderstanding.

In fact, the use of "America" within the U.S. is more due to the accidents of history, including the pride in the early inhabitants in the individual identity of their state.

We are perfectly aware that the other inhabitants of North & South America are "Americans". But we ended up with a different sort of name for our country in which the ONLY part that lends itself to an identifying adjective or name for the people is the "America" part. "United States" is not like "Columbia" or "Mexico" or "Canada" ("United Statesmen" and "United Staters" just don't work!)

In fact, the "United States" part is hardly a "proper name". It has nothing to do with a SPECIFIC geogaphic or ethnic unit (as country names usually do). Rather "united" and "states" are just common nouns referring to the organization of the parts. So, again, "America" is the only 'proper name' part we are left to work with. Now we don't refer to citizens of a country by the part of the name that refers to the organization or form of government. We don't, for instance, refer to people in the "Federal Republic OF Germany" (same basic construction as "United States OF America") as "Federalists" or "Republicans" but as "Germans". (The only exception I can think of is our use of "Soviets" for the citizens of the old U.S.S.R., possible in part because no other nation had an organizational system with the "soviet" label.)

And note how it is we ended up with such a name. The historical REASON for the name "United States of America" had nothing to do with the arrogance of a NATION. On the contrary, it was to preserve the emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual states. As is evident in later sectional struggles (most visibly in our Civil War) the people of each colony, then state, thought of their primary identity as citizens of their particular STATE --as "Virginians", "Georgians", etc.-- rather than as citizens of the larger national unit. And so, the (Second) Continental Congress used a general title for the collection of these.

Answer 2

The answer to your question is: no one knows. There are claims that the name was based on Amerigo Vespucci, the first European to actually reach the mainland of the North American continent.

There are claims (already noted here) that the name derived from a Welsh merchant (Amerike) who sponsored Cabot's journeys.

There are claims that the name derives from a local name used by the indigenous peoples (Amerrique).

The first time the name appeared in print was in a geographical text printed in 1538 (some 41 yrs after Vespucci's voyage); those authors sought to explain the name as being from Vespucci's, but did not claim that they were naming America in his honor, only explaining why the land was already called America. But their explanation may well be wrong.

For a very detailed discussion on the topic, see the link below.

Answer 3

Lots of people think that America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, but that is incorrect. New countries are always named after a person's last name, not their first. America would have been named "Vespucci Land" or something similar, if it had been named after Amerigo Vespucci.

America is named after Richard Ameryk, a Welshman who was a wealthy merchant in the port of Bristol.
Ameryk was the chief investor in the second transatlantic voyage of John Cabot (the English name taken by the Genoese navigator Giovanni Caboto). Caboto made two voyages in 1497 and 1498, which were the foundation of the British claim to Canada. He had been authorised by Henry VII to "search for unknown lands to the West". He reached the coast of Labrador in May 1497 and became the first recorded European to set foot on American soil - two years before Vespucci got there.

As principal sponsor of the expidition, Richard Ameryk would have expected discoveries to be named after him.

The first written record of the name America being used was in the Bristol calendar for 1497 which has the following entry:
'...on St. John the Baptist's day (24 June), the land of America was found by the merchants of Bristowe (Bristol), in a ship of Bristowe called the Mathew'.

So I guess that the first person to call America 'America' was the Captain of the Mathew. Of course, it would be another 280 years before there was a USA.

Of course, the Vikings probably got there first, but no written record survives as proof.

Answer 4

People from the USA and Canada are North Americans. People from Mexico are Latin Americans, even though Mexico is technically part of North America it's culturally Latin American. I don't understand why people refer to the USA as "America," even though I can understand why they say "Americans."

Answer 5

Portugese seafarer Amerigo Vespucci.

Answer 6

Is English your first language? If so, what does your question mean?

Answer 7

I think you need to re-write this question so that it is clear what you are asking.

Answer 8

yes you are correct he did called and aftre that he called again columbus

Answer 9

I don't even know how to approach this one!