An Alternative Origin for "America"?: The Endnotes

Was American actually named after a Welsh merchant? A little more etymology to go with the Americano video.

For more information on alternative etymologies for "America", see this interesting article

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Transcript:

Welcome to the Endnotes, where I put all the fun facts I can’t fit into the main videos! Today, another extra bit of information from the History of the Americano — and if you haven’t seen that yet, click on the card.

The etymology for America given in the video is by far the most widely accepted one, but there is an alternate suggestion that the Americas were not named in honour of Amerigo Vespucci, but after a man named Richard Amerike. According to this claim, Richard Amerike, an Anglo-Welsh merchant, royal customs officer, and sheriff of Bristol, was a backer of John Cabot’s expedition to the “new world”, which was subsequently named after him in gratitude for this sponsorship. The problem is there isn’t really any evidence for any of this, and so few have taken up the theory. By the way, his last name Amerike is an anglicised spelling of the Welsh ap Meurig meaning “son of Meurig”, which is the Welsh form of the name Maurice, which comes from the Latin name Maurus. This in turn may be related to Greek mauros “dark” and/or to Moor, in other words meaning ‘inhabitant of Mauritania’. But lest we lose our connection to that PIE *reg- root central to the Americano video, Amerike’s first name, Richard, is made up of the elements ric “ruler” and harthu “hard”, so literally “hard or powerful ruler”.

As always, you can hear even more etymology and history, as well as interviews with a wide range of fascinating people, on the Endless Knot Podcast, available on all the major podcast platforms as well as our other YouTube channel. Thanks for watching!