Why do we call America?

American place names can sound pretty confusing even to native English speakers. From Philadelphia (Greek for “loving brother”) to Chicago (Algonquian Fox for “place of the wild onion”), the map of America is an etymological hodge-podge. For a clear example, take three adjacent states in New England. read more

After all, we all learned early on that it was Vespucci, not Christopher Columbus, who actually realized he had found a previously unheard of land mass. What was colloquially called the “New World” soon became known as “America”. read more

By the way, America is the whole continent; the subdivisions are only for the sake of geographic or geological study, but the continental plate is America. Every time we, people who live in any place besides the United States of America, feel embarrassed when we hear about "being American is", "the spirit of America is", and such utterances. read more