Eventually it would need a name, although some parts of it would continue under such non-names as 'Newfoundland'.
Many history students are familiar with the fact that America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer, cartographer, navigator, and financier who did much to lead the way toward a more accurate knowledge of American geography. His voyages to the Caribbean Sea, and to the Atlantic coast of South America paved the way for the further exploration of the Americas, and eventually, long afterward, the settling and civilizing of the Americas. The data he collected was important for mapmaking.
But who named America?
America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, but it was named by two German cartographers, Matthias Ringmann and Martin Waldseemüller.
Matthias Ringmann was a poet and grammarian. In addition to writing about the rules of grammar, about ancient authors, and his own original texts, he was a friend of Martin Waldseemüller. Ringmann was something of a cartographer, and credited Amerigo Vespucci with making an important advance, inasmuch as he journeyed further south than the Caribbean region initially explored by Columbus. Waldseemüller and Ringmann together published, in 1507, a new edition of an old book, Ptolemy's geography book, along with newer material written by Ringmann and Waldseemüller. In writing the introduction to that book, Ringmann was the first author to print and publish the word 'America'. He spent much of his life in or near Lorraine (more properly called 'Lothringen').
Martin Waldseemüller did more of the cartography and less composing of text; his maps were the first to use 'America'. He spent much of his life in or near Freiburg.
While the Spaniards and Portuguese were the first wave of explorers in the New World, the German cartographers were known for producing the most detailed and precise maps. And so it was a team of two German mapmakers who named America after an Italian!
