George R. Stewart, in his book *Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States* (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1967 [revised edition]) suggested that the name "United States of America" may have been unfortunate. True, it was natural at the time: the revolutionaries had referred to "the united colonies of North America" or "the united colonies of America" and then began to refer to "states" rather than colonies. So it was appropriate when the Declaration of Independence referred to "WE, THEREFORE, the representatives of the United States of America." This represented the least possible breach with tradition. But, Stewart continues (p. 171):
"As soon, however, as the emergency of the war had grown less, the inadequacy of the name became apparent. United States of America was greatly lacking in that it supplied no good adjective or term for the inhabitants of the country. It was unwieldy, inexact, and unoriginal. Although it rolled well from the tongue of an orator, not even the sincerest patriot could manage it in a poem or song.
"Possibly some far-seeing federalists may also have realized already that, however good it may once have been, the name could become a political hazard. England or France, Virginia or Massachusetts--all these implied an indivisible unity. Such states could be conquered or their governments overthrown by revolution, but they could not be obviously split into components. The very plurality of States, however, was a standing suggestion that what had once been united could equally well be taken apart; in the very name, the seeds of nullification and secession lay hidden." (One can of course argue that Stewart is exaggerating the importance of names here; I doubt that nullification or secession would lose many supporters had the country been named Columbia. Still, the fact that the states were incorporated in the very name of the USA was not without some rhetorical effect in arguments for the primacy of states' rights. See Calhoun's "And what are the 'United States' but the States united?" http://founding.com/founders-library/american-political-figures/john-c-calhoun/)
Stewart thinks "Columbia" (perhaps invented by the poet Philip Freneau) would have been better. "It was an obvious coinage by the standards of the time. Poets quite generally preferred such elegantly classical circumlocutions as Britannia for Great Britain, Scotia for Scotland, and Cambria for Wales. Some of these terms had already established themselves in English as national names, such as Russia and Austria." Columbus had never been a hero in colonial days (the British for political reasons preferred to emphasize the Cabots' discovery of North America) but by the time of the Revolution there was not much chance that Spain would claim sovereignty over New York or Philadelphia, and the Cabots were shadowy agents of a British king, unheroic in stature. The country began to look back to Columbus as a kind of founding hero.
Stewart concludes that "Columbia was a happy coinage. Virginia and Georgia had already made such names familiar. It was almost everything that the United States of America was not--short, precise, original, poetic, indivisible, and flexibly yielding good adjectives and nouns. Freneau used it several times in *American Liberty*, and in the succeeding years it gradually became established in poetry. In 1786, it was adopted for the new capital of South Carolina." The logical time for adopting it as the name for the new nation would have been during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, but the delegates had more important things on their minds.
The independence of the Latin American republics made "United States of America" a more questionable choice than ever. Yes, in most cases it's clear from context whether "American" is being used to describe the country or the continents, but that is not always the case, and anyway, was it really wise to add one more grievance, however petty, to the Latin Americans' resentment of the Colossus of the North? (Although, as Bergen Evans once remarked, any injustice in using "America" to refer to the USA can hardly compare to that of naming an entire hemisphere for Amerigo Vespucci in the first place.) And it led to such absurdities as Latin Americans referring to people from the USA as North Americans--although geographically that name is just as applicable not only to Canadians but to Mexicans as well. (And of course if you pointed out the imprecision of "North American" there were always "Yanqui" and "Gringo"...)
After 1787, some suggestions to change the name of the USA were still made-- e.g., "Usona" from United States of North America--but they never got anywhere. (Another contender, but not a very serious one, was "Fredonia" which survives only in the names of a few towns and in the Marx Brothers' *Duck Soup.*) Columbus was out of contention after 1819, being associated with a region of South America. And of course had Columbia been chosen, some Native Americans and African Americans might now be saying that the very name of the country was racist and should be changed--but again, Amerigo Vespucci was no less a dead white European colonialist male.
To Stewart, "United States of America" is just another example of the ineptitude of politicians in choosing place-names. "British Commonwealth of Nations is almost as bad as United States of America and Soyuz Sovietskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik is even worse. Rowland Hill remarked that he did not see why the Devil should have all the good tunes. The case is not so bad with names, but certainly the term Axis is, as a name, much superior to its floundering counterpart, United Nations." (Stewart was writing in 1945; if you doubt the last point, imagine a Jimi Hendrix album "United Nations, Bold as Love.") Elsewhere (p. 190) Stewart notes as a particularly inept name, "The territory of the United States Northwest of the river Ohio" adopted by Congress in the Ordinance of 1787. "This name was so completely bad that perhaps for that very reason it vanished finally without trace..."
Footnote: I just made the happy discovery that *Names on the Land* is now available for free online: https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.111746/2015.111746.Names-On-The-Land#page/n1/mode/2up
"As soon, however, as the emergency of the war had grown less, the inadequacy of the name became apparent. United States of America was greatly lacking in that it supplied no good adjective or term for the inhabitants of the country. It was unwieldy, inexact, and unoriginal. Although it rolled well from the tongue of an orator, not even the sincerest patriot could manage it in a poem or song.
"Possibly some far-seeing federalists may also have realized already that, however good it may once have been, the name could become a political hazard. England or France, Virginia or Massachusetts--all these implied an indivisible unity. Such states could be conquered or their governments overthrown by revolution, but they could not be obviously split into components. The very plurality of States, however, was a standing suggestion that what had once been united could equally well be taken apart; in the very name, the seeds of nullification and secession lay hidden." (One can of course argue that Stewart is exaggerating the importance of names here; I doubt that nullification or secession would lose many supporters had the country been named Columbia. Still, the fact that the states were incorporated in the very name of the USA was not without some rhetorical effect in arguments for the primacy of states' rights. See Calhoun's "And what are the 'United States' but the States united?" http://founding.com/founders-library/american-political-figures/john-c-calhoun/)
Stewart thinks "Columbia" (perhaps invented by the poet Philip Freneau) would have been better. "It was an obvious coinage by the standards of the time. Poets quite generally preferred such elegantly classical circumlocutions as Britannia for Great Britain, Scotia for Scotland, and Cambria for Wales. Some of these terms had already established themselves in English as national names, such as Russia and Austria." Columbus had never been a hero in colonial days (the British for political reasons preferred to emphasize the Cabots' discovery of North America) but by the time of the Revolution there was not much chance that Spain would claim sovereignty over New York or Philadelphia, and the Cabots were shadowy agents of a British king, unheroic in stature. The country began to look back to Columbus as a kind of founding hero.
Stewart concludes that "Columbia was a happy coinage. Virginia and Georgia had already made such names familiar. It was almost everything that the United States of America was not--short, precise, original, poetic, indivisible, and flexibly yielding good adjectives and nouns. Freneau used it several times in *American Liberty*, and in the succeeding years it gradually became established in poetry. In 1786, it was adopted for the new capital of South Carolina." The logical time for adopting it as the name for the new nation would have been during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, but the delegates had more important things on their minds.
The independence of the Latin American republics made "United States of America" a more questionable choice than ever. Yes, in most cases it's clear from context whether "American" is being used to describe the country or the continents, but that is not always the case, and anyway, was it really wise to add one more grievance, however petty, to the Latin Americans' resentment of the Colossus of the North? (Although, as Bergen Evans once remarked, any injustice in using "America" to refer to the USA can hardly compare to that of naming an entire hemisphere for Amerigo Vespucci in the first place.) And it led to such absurdities as Latin Americans referring to people from the USA as North Americans--although geographically that name is just as applicable not only to Canadians but to Mexicans as well. (And of course if you pointed out the imprecision of "North American" there were always "Yanqui" and "Gringo"...)
After 1787, some suggestions to change the name of the USA were still made-- e.g., "Usona" from United States of North America--but they never got anywhere. (Another contender, but not a very serious one, was "Fredonia" which survives only in the names of a few towns and in the Marx Brothers' *Duck Soup.*) Columbus was out of contention after 1819, being associated with a region of South America. And of course had Columbia been chosen, some Native Americans and African Americans might now be saying that the very name of the country was racist and should be changed--but again, Amerigo Vespucci was no less a dead white European colonialist male.
To Stewart, "United States of America" is just another example of the ineptitude of politicians in choosing place-names. "British Commonwealth of Nations is almost as bad as United States of America and Soyuz Sovietskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik is even worse. Rowland Hill remarked that he did not see why the Devil should have all the good tunes. The case is not so bad with names, but certainly the term Axis is, as a name, much superior to its floundering counterpart, United Nations." (Stewart was writing in 1945; if you doubt the last point, imagine a Jimi Hendrix album "United Nations, Bold as Love.") Elsewhere (p. 190) Stewart notes as a particularly inept name, "The territory of the United States Northwest of the river Ohio" adopted by Congress in the Ordinance of 1787. "This name was so completely bad that perhaps for that very reason it vanished finally without trace..."
Footnote: I just made the happy discovery that *Names on the Land* is now available for free online: https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.111746/2015.111746.Names-On-The-Land#page/n1/mode/2up
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