Why are South American countries called “Latin” countries? None of them speak or write in Latin, or as far as I can tell have anything to do with Latin…
They speak, for the most part, Romance languages which are derived from Latin.
Then why isn’t Quebec also “Latin America”?
The roman catholic church might be a factor also.
Grouping and isolation.
I would just add that Napoelon III promoted the use of "Latin"America to emphasize the area’s similarities to “Latin” France, as opposed to Anglo-Saxon Britain and the United States.
before the 1850s, the region was usually referred to in English as “Spanish America” (excluding Brazil), and in Spanish: Iberoamérica - which is still probably preferred in Spain.
Latin America, in practice, tends to include just the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries of the Americas, even though French is also a Romance language. Few really would really think of Haitians as “Latin Americans,” although Dominicans, from the same island of Hispaniola, certainly are. The few non-Spanish/Portuguese-speaking countries/territories of Central and South America (Belize, Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana) are culturally and politically more closely related to the Caribbean than they are to their neighbors.