Back in 1776 and before, I mean - when the founders knew that their 13 Colonies would become an independent, and brand new, country. Wiki says that Stephen Moylan, Washington’s aide-du-camp, back in 1776 wrote the first known document that had the phrase “United States of America” and in 1777 the Articles of Confederation said that it would be the style of their confederacy.
Inspired by other proposed names of Canada, which while not seriously considered in an official capacity, are amusing to read, for instance ‘Victorialand’, ‘Colonia’, ‘Transatlantica’ and my personal favourite, ‘Ursalia’; ‘place of bears’.
It’s funny, because during the World Cup I kept thinking how generic our nation’s name is. It’s not really a name, but a description. It would be like if Canada was named “North American Country Comprised of Provinces”.
You mean unlike The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? The United Mexican States? The Federative Republic of Brazil? The Plurinational State of Bolivia? The Co-operative Republic of Guyana? The Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis? The Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe? The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago?
iirc, one contender was “Columbia.”—but I’m too lazy to confirm it via google.
I like what the Scots propose, calling an independent Scotland just plain ol’ “Scotland” (without any of that elaborate “Republic of” “Federation of,” etc).
IIRC, Japan is formally just “Japan” post that little stint where they were officially Empire of Japan"
Those are different because they all have proper names within them that are not just the name of their continent. I think better comparisons are South Africa, United Arab Emirates and Central African Republic.
It’s a good question, and I believe the founders seemed to content with America, with the union of the states simply bearing that name.
There are a few other analogous names in the world, such as Guinea. Guinea is a large region of Africa, whose name came from the Berber word for the darker people who lived to the south of them. Four countries are still named Guinea, and three more countries were formerly calledl Guinea by their colonial masters.
The United States could have just as easily been called the Republic of America, just as there is now a Republic of Guinea, which includes on a small part of a vast territory called Guinea, extending all the way nearly to Gabon, which borders on one of the Guinea republics… Had the founders settled on the name Republic of America, it would probably be simply known as “America”, with users of the word left to sort out they fairly simple and intuitive task of deciding whether the country or the hemisphere is being referenced.
Nobody in Cote d’Ivoire or Nigeria is screaming “Hey, we’re part of Guinea, too”.
Of course these days if you just say ‘America’ most people know you’re talking about the country, back in the late 18th century though I don’t think this would have been the case. Interesting that they chose to include ‘of America’ in it though, possibly to emphasise its distinction from the Old World? There was apparently also a United States of Belgium, only briefly used in 1790 though.
Prior to 1776, the colonies were distinctly individual units, with some of them suspicious, if not outright hostile to New England, and Boston in particular. Unity among them was not exactly high on anyone’s list, although MA tried to do so with the Continental Congresses starting in 1774. So it would be surprising that there was any unifying collective name for all 13 other than just America, or the American colonies. It took Lexington/Concord to bring the militias on the run in 1775, but even then, the militia men wouldn’t listen to anybody other than an officer from their own area, and only if everybody was in consensus over what action to take. It’s a wonder that America ever prevailed in that war.
Columbia, Appalachia, Alleghenia, Vesperia, Freeland, Fredonia, Cabotia (after the real discoverer), Vinland (someone thought we should go back to Norse roots for some reason).
from The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries, Volume 24 (on google books) July-December 1890
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Freedonian was probably first used by Americans immediately after the American Revolution in place of the demonym “American”.[1] The term Freedonia was later popularized by the 1933 Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup, as a fictional country. Over time, however, the word has come to have a more generic meaning. It can be anything from a noun describing a plausible yet fictional country, to an adjective (“Freedonian”) used to characterize a place like the Freedonia of Duck Soup. Because the Marx Brothers’ Freedonia had so many qualities—autocracy, diminutiveness, and obscurity, to name but a few — a place can be described as “Freedonian” for having any one of these qualities.
[/QUOTE]
It has taken me many decades to really appreciate this, but I think that there is a big misconception among many. We tend to think of America as the country, and we think of the states as administrative subdivisions of that country. That’s NOT how it is even nowadays ,and it certainly was not like that in 1776.
My understanding and belief is that upon renouncing allegiance to England, the 13 colonies became free and independent states – not only independent of England, but also independent of each other. In a separate but concurrent act, they also chose to unite for specific and limited purposes which were laid out later on in the Constitution.
If so, “United States of America” is an excellent choice for a name, because it acknowledges the individuality of the states. My apologies if I’ve veered off into GD territory.
Nitpick: in Japanese, the full name is 日本国 (Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku), i.e., “the State of Japan”. That “koku” part generally doesn’t get translated into English.
Well, they were always independent of each other; that part didn’t change following independence. The king directly appointed each governor, and their was no chief governor in charge of them all as a unit. I believe the continental congresses were the first unifying body of any sort, hastily formalized under the Articles of Confederation. Even then, each state retained near full sovereignty, as you said, until the Constitution was ratified.
