The present thread on “First Citizen of…” raises (for me, anyhow) the question of “Does the US have an Official Name”?
Is there any legal document stating “This country shall be known as ___”?
I went right to the Constitution, of course, and the famous first paragraph refers to the country both as “United States” and “United States of America”.
I’d expect to find there’s some ‘housekeeping’ legislation that defines an ‘official name’ but if so, what is it?
Article I of the Articles of Confederation says
The AofC is no longer in force, but it’s one data point anyway.
But the one that does the naming is, IIRC from 10th grade U.S. History, the one that says “this Constitution for the United States of America.”
My son’s birth certificate says at the top “Report of Birth Abroad of a Citizen of the United States of America” (issued in 1986)
Looking at a photo of the original document there is no title; it just starts with “We the people…”
Throughout the document it alternates between “United States” and “United States of America”. There are more occurances of plain “United States”, although in the first paragraph they are each used once.
So which one is the official name? Or is there yet some other official name/variation in some naming document?
Well, when the President gets up and speaks, the doohickey behind him says he is the President of the United States of America.
Who said there was? Keep reading and you’ll get to the identifying phrase:
(emphasis added)
Think of the Preamble as a movie teaser that comes on before the opening credits. 
I looked through the table of contents of Title I of the US Code. There’s plenty of stuff about the flag, Great Seal, styles of address, orders of precedence, etc., but I didn’t see anything establishing an official style for the country’s name.
So I think the only authoritative source is the Constitution itself, which in its preamble states that it is the “Constitution for the United States of America.” Subsequent uses of the name “United States” is just a convenient abbreviation. They had to write that stuff by hand.
My passport says my nationality is “United States of America.”
Actually it doesn’t, if this is what you mean: File:Seal of the President of the United States.svg - Wikipedia
Ah, but is it the long form? 
As a matter of fact, it WAS the long form (that’s what I found first) I have both the long and the short form for him.
Yeah, I always thought The United States of America was more of a description than a proper name for a country. Maybe we could petition the Congress for a real name. Any suggestions?
Columbia? Wasn’t that the original idea?
(Of course, there may be a few objections from a certain country in South America…)
South Canada?
