# America: just who was it named after? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 4, 2007, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761 "2007-12-04T05:57:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2007, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/1 "2007-12-04T05:57:47Z")
I’ve been reading an intriguing little book, [The Book of General Ignorance.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_General_Ignorance) In it, it asserts that America wasn’t named after Amerigo Vespucci after all, but a Welsh merchant from Bristol named Richard Ameryk (or Amerike). Ameryk was said to have been the chief investor in the second transatlantic voyage of John Cabot. Cabot mapped the North American coastline, and named the result after his patron. While Waldseemüller’s map shows the name America, he applied it only to South America, according to this book – and even then, didn’t seem to certain of the Amerigo Vespucci story. By 1513, America had become “Terra Incognita”. This flies in the face of Cecil’s 1994 article, [Why was America named after Amerigo Vespucci?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_021.html) so, I’m keen to learn what others think. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2007, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/2 "2007-12-04T06:24:00Z")
I tend to not accept the Amerigo Vespucci story simply because it would seen more logical to name it Vespuccia if it were true. Naming it America after Amerigo would be like naming it Fred if Fred Smith were the financier (or map maker, as the case may be). You would think it would be something like Vesspucia or at least Amerigoland. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2007, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/3 "2007-12-04T07:31:59Z")
Thanks, **askeptic**. That’s a point raised also in the book I’ve been reading. _The Book of General Ignorance_ was the first place where I learned of the Welsh merchant, though. That’d be a bit of a hoot – America named after a Welshman. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2007, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/4 "2007-12-04T11:18:49Z")
[QUOTE=Ice Wolf] I’ve been reading an intriguing little book, [The Book of General Ignorance.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_General_Ignorance) In it, it asserts that America wasn’t named after Amerigo Vespucci after all, but a Welsh merchant from Bristol named Richard Ameryk (or Amerike). Ameryk was said to have been the chief investor in the second transatlantic voyage of John Cabot. Cabot mapped the North American coastline, and named the result after his patron. While Waldseemüller’s map shows the name America, he applied it only to South America, according to this book – and even then, didn’t seem to certain of the Amerigo Vespucci story. By 1513, America had become “Terra Incognita”. This flies in the face of Cecil’s 1994 article, [Why was America named after Amerigo Vespucci?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_021.html) so, I’m keen to learn what others think. [/QUOTE] Well, we have discussed it before: [Who is America named after? It’s not Amerigo Vespucci!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=428657&highlight=vespucci) One thing that has to be kept in mind: at the time, last names were not so important as they are today. People are far more likely to have been known by either their first name (Leonardo, for example), or a nickname (Fibonacci, for example), or a title. Thus, it’s not enough to point to the fact that the continent is named after Amerigo as if that is an unusual thing. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/5 "2007-12-04T15:21:05Z")
Richard Schenkman discusses this and other bizarre theories of what “America” might come from (like the theory that it’s from “Amt” “Erik”, supposedly “Land of Eric” after Eric the Red or Leif Ericson, somehow) in his book **Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History** , which gives several references that discuss the topic in much filler historical detail (they’re mostly history journal articles). The bottom line is that none of the alternate explanations are ultimately convincing. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2007, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/6 "2007-12-04T17:11:06Z")
The whole Meryk/Ameryk/America theory rests only on circumstantial speculation. And rather flimsy circumstantial speculation at that. Only one document mentions both Richard Meryk and Cabot. That is [the 1498 Signet warrant for the payment of Cabot’s royal pension](http://www.reformation.org/richard-ameryk.html). But that connects the two men only in the most indirect fashion. Meryk is mentioned in it merely because he happened to have been one of the Bristol customs collectors. He was being used to pay Cabot’s pension for the simple reason that the customs collectors, as the royal officials on the spot with large sums of royal cash in their hands, were the obvious persons for the king to use. No need to transport all the cash up to the Exchequer at Westminster when there is someone in Bristol due a payment from the king. The Exchequer did this sort of thing all the time and everything suggests that Meryk’s role in this transaction was entirely routine and unremarkable. Nor should we even suppose that Cabot necessarily got the money in person from either of the collectors. As he was being paid in tallies, he would have had the option of getting his money immediately by selling those on (at a discount) to a third party. He may never have met either Meryk or Arthur Kemys, the other collector. [QUOTE=Ice Wolf] Ameryk was said to have been the chief investor in the second transatlantic voyage of John Cabot. [/QUOTE] Sure, Meryk has been said to have been Cabot’s chief investor. But only by modern writers trying to bolster the Meryk/Ameryk/America theory. The reality is that, although a number of other names have been suggested, there is no evidence at all as to the identities of any of Cabot’s investors. It’s not as if there weren’t plenty of other Bristol merchants who might have financed the voyage. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2007, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/7 "2007-12-04T18:49:53Z")
Oddly appropriate Yahoo story that just came up: [http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071203/ts\_nm/usa\_map\_dc](http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071203/ts_nm/usa_map_dc) ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/8 "2007-12-04T19:35:09Z")
Thanks, folks. When I read the book, my initial thought was, “Eh?” having been brought up on the Vespucci connection as the orthodox version of this bit of history. I’d like to see more of the entry in the Bristol calendar that supposedly says “on St John the Baptist’s Day [24 June 1497], the land of America was found by the merchants of Bristowe, in a ship of Bristowe called the _Mathew_” and I do wonder just how on earth the name of a merchant could end up getting such wide coverage as to continue to be associated with the continent without Waldseemüller being aware of him. But naming the continent after Vespucci’s first name leads to doubts, as does the disappearance of the name from Waldseemüller’s second version. Cheers for the replies. Guess this is still just question mark territory. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/9 "2007-12-08T14:51:35Z")
This book by [Rodney Broome](http://www.amazon.com/Terra-Incognita-True-Story-America/dp/0944638228/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197125217&sr=8-1) goes into the Bristol merchant theory of naming America in some detail - and I found it an interesting read. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-just-who-was-it-named-after/428761/10 "2007-12-08T15:01:35Z")
I thought America was named after Julius Caesar. … well, it wasn’t named before him.