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Vespucci Land or How America Was Named [1]
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Date: 2025-02-14
America was named after Amerigo Vespucci. We could be living in Vespucci Land, instead.
In Portuguese, his name is Américo Vespúcio. In Spanish, Américo Vespucio.
Unlike the naming conventions we have been using for hundreds of years, his first name was used instead of the last name. How did that happen?
It's not a Google Maps problem like the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of America.
It was cartographers who made the decision, not royalty or politicians.
It happened in 1507, with a book named "Introduction to Cosmography," with an accompanying world map. One of the authors wrote:
"I see no reason why anyone could properly disapprove of a name derived from that of Amerigo, the discoverer, a man of sagacious genius. A suitable form would be Amerige, meaning Land of Amerigo, or America, since Europe and Asia have received women's names."
A thousand copies of the map were printed, titled Universal Geography According to the Tradition of Ptolemy and the Contributions of Amerigo Vespucci and others.
"It was decorated with the portraits of Ptolemy and Vespucci, and, for the first time, the name of America was applied to a map of the New World."
New World Order. Oops, better not use that.
As you can see on the 1507 map, Vespucci is on the right, and Ptolemy is on the left.
1507 map. The original was not in color.
However, you can see on the left of the map that they had no idea how large North and South America were. Slivers instead of continents.
1507 section showing America.
But wait, there's more. One of the authors of the book published a map later with the land named "Terra Incognita," meaning a place that hasn't been mapped or explored, instead of America, and named Columbus as the discoverer. Many felt that Columbus had been slighted.
Terra Incognita map.
The original 1507 map was so popular that America was the winner from that point on.
1538 Mercator map.
In 1538, Gerardus Mercator used America to name both North and South continents, and that was the end of any dispute. I think.
As to the Gulf of America. America is applicable to the whole Western Hemisphere. Better would have been the Gulf of Americas, for North, South and Central. So, the name change is not completely invalid, but it didn't need to be done. Foolish braggadocio. Nobody had a problem with the Gulf of Mexico.
If Donald Trump wanted to be completely unhinged, it would have been the Gulf of the United States of America. Don't anybody tell him that.
What about being called an American? That applies to everybody in the Western Hemisphere. People have tried to come up with a name that specifically meant a resident of the United States. "Yankee" didn't work for people from the South. "Unisan," "United Statesian," "Usian," "United Stater," "Ustater," and Frank Lloyd Wright came up with "Usonian."
What's in a name? Apparently a lot.
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