Why is South America referred to as “Latin America” and it’s people as “Latinos”? I’d think if any people were considered Latins it would be the descendants of the Greeks and Romans, but obviously my knowledge of history must be lacking in some area.
Spanish and Portuguese are known as “Latin” or “Latinate” languages. I believe they are also called “Romance” languages. It’s because they have so much in common with ancient Latin.
Trinopus
The people who could best be considered descendants of the Latins are the Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanians, since all of those languages are directly descended from Latin. Since Spanish and Portuguese are the main languages of South and Central America, it makes sense somehow, to refer to those areas as Latin America.
Don’t neglect the other Romance (latinate) languages: Rhaetian, Occitan (Langue d’Oc), Friulian, Catalan, Dalmatian, & Sardinian.
There are others, but they mostly died out.
Italians are sometimes called “Latins.” Since Latin was a language, not a nationality (like Roman), any people who speak a Romance language have a legitimate claim to a label like “Latin” or “Latino.”
Makes sense, but in light of the other responses vis a vis French, Italian, etc also having just as legitimate claims to Latin heritage, so the bottom line is: is it really much of a distinction to call any of these particular heritages Latin at the exclusion of the others? Seems like this may have begun as a random nickname and just stuck over the ages.
My bolding.
No, it isn’t a logical distinction. Any or all could justifiably called “Latin”, but somehow that appelation got applied more to the Spanish line than to any other.
Good point, and you can add Moldovan, Vlach, Gallegan, and one or two others. But the last person natively fluent in Dalmatian died just after WWI (I avoided “last speaker” as his parents were that – he grew up knowing it but never himself spoke it after their deaths, for obvious reasons). The Dalmatians I’m aware of speak either Serbo-Croatian or Canine. 
So we could call Quebec part of Latin America.
Which is where a lot of Candadians would like to export that province, too.
Actually, in french, “romances languages” are called the equivalent of “latin languages”. It might be the same in spanish, portuguese, italian, etc… (never wondered about it). So, from a french (and possibly spanish, portuguese…and latin american!) point of view, it’s logical to call latin america this way. It’s the equivalent of calling it “romance america” in english.
So, it depends also on whom began to call it “latin america”…Possibly the latin americans themselves did. Most probably, the british weren’t involved and just adopted the word.