Just how did America get to be named after Amerigo Vespucci, who was fairly obscure? I understand th

Just how did America get to be named after Amerigo Vespucci, who was fairly obscure? I understand that it may have been a blunder by an early map-maker.

Geoffrey C. Bobker, London

• There's no conclusive evidence, just several contending (and contentious) theories, but it seems unlikely that the two continents are named after Vespucci (after all, it would be Vespucia, or Ameriga, wouldn't it?) The most convincing theory I've heard (on the purely subjective grounds that I used to live in Bristol) is that the land mass was named by John Cabot after Dafydd ap Meric (anglicised to David Merrick), who has been variously described as his mapmaker, or his financial backer. Take your pick. There's probably plenty more theories to come on this one ...

  Mark Power, Dublin

• Not only was America named for Cabot's sponsor, Richard Amerike/Ap Meryk but aparently the 'stars and stripes' flag is taken from his coat of arms! For details see... http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/discovery/exploration/naming_04.shtml

  Mark Dallas, London

• A Florentine businessman who moved to Seville, where he ran a ship supply busines (Incidentally supplying one for Cristophe Colon - Columbus) he visited the new world only three or four times as a lowly officer or passenger. He was not an accomplished seaman. However, in 1504-5 letters of unknown authorship began circulating in Florence stating that Vespucci had been Captain of voyages to the new world. The mistake would have gone no further except that an instructor at a small college in eastern France - Martin Waldseemuller - was working on a revised edition of Ptolemy and updated it with a new map of the world. He came across the letters with the spurious account of Vespucci's exploits and named the continent in his honour. First translating Amerigo into the Latin 'Americus' and then into its feminine form (as with Europe and Asia) America. Interestingly Vespucci is thought to have been the brother of Simonetti Vespucci - Boticelli's Venus!! All of this is taken from 'Made in America' by Bill Bryson.

  Ben Roome, London

• Regarding the above, although throughout Europe family names were not universally used in the medieval period Amerigo Vespucci is not an example of someone known only by his first name. There is no reason why anything named after him would not be called 'Vespuccia', and every reason to think that it should have been so named, as place names are derived from the latin form of the surname, never the first name.

  Philip, Cambridge, UK

• If America wasn't named after Amerigo, than where would it have come from? Maybe it was the "Amerigo's" at first, but over time, cultural contamination and time could have warped it to America. either way, it isn't like we can ask him, is it?

  Vlad, Golden, Colorado

• I believe the story as told above: that the map-making and naming process was bungled; i.e., that America was, in fact, named "America" to honour the funding source of Cabot - Richard "Amerike" (later changed to 'Merriken'. But I am admittedly a bit prejudiced - he was an 'ornament on my family tree' and we are related. One of my earliest documented, born in America, ancestors was "Anna Merriken" (born in Maryland, near Annapolis). Nathaniel Stinchcomb married (2) Anna Merriken January 03, 1704/05 in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. She was born about 1670 in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. See: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~stinchcomb/thomas.htm

  Eugene B. Veek, Prescott, Arizona, USA