Alternate names for America?

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Faeelin

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What are other names that America could've been given? (The continents, not the nation).

Braseal: The celtic name.

Hesperia?

Al-gharb (Arabic for the west)?

What else?
 
There's some sort of RPG where you have North and South Vespucia(sp), and there was a thread on the old board about the southern continent being named America and the northern one Columbia. I suppose if the Portugese had discovered them we might have North and South Brazil. A lot depends on who the person is that does the discovering, Cabotia? or maybe Magellica?
 
Antichthon, the supposed "counter" continent to Europe and the Near East. It'd actually be better suited to Australia (Antichthon was supposed to be to the south, in the Indian Ocean), but its a possibility.
 

Straha

Banned
some names

Europa Occidentalis Magna Nova

Atlantis

Colombia

Avalon

Westralia

Vingaard

Karthago Nova

Terranova

Roma Nova De Sud

Ultima Thule

Hyperborea

Nova Roma
 
I came up with the name over 30 years ago. I suggested that, since other places are named after the last name of a person (ex. Tasmania) that so should the New World continents. My social science teacher had a hoot imitating Kruschev ("the imperialistic warmongers of the United States of Vespuccia!")
 
Gold Mountain

That's what the Chinese named California. If the Cheng Ho fleets had discovered San Francisco Bay and it's mercury mines, they would definitely have colonized the Americas. Later they would have found the gold of California and Mexico, and the silver of the Andes. There would have been a flood of immigrants that would have had a big head start on the Spanish and the Portuguese, let alone the English, French, Dutch, and Scandinavians.
 
How about Occidentalia or Occident, after the Latin word for "West"? It's not very creative, but there's no guarantee that the new lands would be named after a particular discoverer or get a more "creative" name. My guess is that in English, at least, the continents would be called "North Occident" and "South Occident", since "Occidentalia" just has too many syllables.

If Columbus' career after his initial discoveries had been more successful, one or both continents could easily have ended up being called "Columbia". In OTL, his failure to discover either a passage to the Indies or a major source of gold, plus his horrible record running the earliest Spanish colony on Hispaniola, plus his stubborn adherence to the idea that he was fairly close to Asia, plus his getting shipwrecked for a year on his fourth voyage, plus other factors all contributed to a sharp decline in his influence and popularity. Other explorers (including Vespucci) had already taken over the limelight years before Columbus died.

It's ironic that Amerigo Vespucci was an active explorer only in South America, but ended up having BOTH continents named after him. If there had been another early 16th century explorer who had conducted a whole series of successful and well-publicized explorations of the lands north of the Caribbean, perhaps that explorer would end up with his name attached to the continent. In OTL, some of the early explorers of what would become the eastern coasts of the USA and Canada were John Cabot and his son Sebastian sailing for England, the Corte Real brothers for Portugal, and Verrazano for France. For the Spanish there was Ponce de Leon, Narvaez, then De Soto and Coronado, as well as a couple of other explorers whose names I don't remember right now. If any of them had been either been successful in mapping much of the coastline or starting a successful permanent settlement (or both) we might have South America as "America" and North America could be Cabotia, Realia, Verrazania, Leonia, Coronadia, Sotosia (?) or who knows what else!
 
Obvious choices

Columbia and Altantis are the most likely, but there is always the possibility of naming the continent after the explorer's queen. For instance, Henry VII's wife was Elizabeth of York, so Elizabethia? Or someone really religious might name it Virginia - how about an Ottoman explorer? Bat-i Memleket? (eastern domain)
 

Faeelin

Banned
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
Columbia and Altantis are the most likely, but there is always the possibility of naming the continent after the explorer's queen. For instance, Henry VII's wife was Elizabeth of York, so Elizabethia? Or someone really religious might name it Virginia - how about an Ottoman explorer? Bat-i Memleket? (eastern domain)

Why eastern? Algarve comes from al-gharb; the western lands of al-andalus. If that's west, how is america east?
 

Faeelin

Banned
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
Typo. The Ottoman is correct, the translation wrong - I meant Western, not Eastern.

Hmm. Confusing cardinal directions is a sign of dyslexia. Do you stay up at night and pray to dog as well?
 
Hmm.

I always wondered if you had a sense of humor, and now we know the answer is "no".

Anyway, I'm having big trouble with East and West these days; as a Californian, the ocean was always West, now it's the opposite.

I don't do left & right so well either, one would presume for entirely different reasons.
 
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
I always wondered if you had a sense of humor, and now we know the answer is "no".

Anyway, I'm having big trouble with East and West these days; as a Californian, the ocean was always West, now it's the opposite.

I don't do left & right so well either, one would presume for entirely different reasons.

You should have gone to Santa Barbara, California. From there the ocean is always South.
 
16th-17th Century Latin Names

Common names used in the up until the seventeenth century in Latin maps were "America Mexicana" and "America Peruana", for North and South respectively. These are the best names I've encountered, and can be easily abbreviated as Mexicana and Peruana or Pervana.

Note that the name 'Columbia' has been historicly applied only to North America. To apply to the South as some of you have done reverses the historical order.
 
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