From Where Did America Get Its Name?

America got its name from an Italian navigator, who was also a merchant and was named Amerigo Vespucci.  The career of Vespucci saw its outset in the bank of Lorenzo and Giovanni Pier Francesco de' Medici.  In the year 1491, Amerigo was sent to Seville.  That was the place where he met Christopher Columbus for the very first time.  In the very beginning of the year 1505 Vespucci was summoned to the Court of Spain for a private consultation and was appointed chief navigator for the famous Case de Contracion de las Indias (Commercial House for the West Indies).  It was a matter of great prestige to be given that respectable position and the matter was no exception for Vespucci.  He served as the chief navigator for the Commercial House for the West Indies till his death.  In the year 1507, a humanist scholar Waldeseemuller gave the suggestion that the newly discovered world (that was declared by Vespucci that it is a whole new world and is not part of Asia) to be named America after Amerigo.  Later on, the extension was given to the new world in the form of the name North America.

Well actually, most people believe that it came from the name of one of the first men to discover America, Amerigo Vespucci, but it has been found out that a welsh man named Richard Amerike financed John Cabot's journey in 1497 in which he discovered Newfoundland. It is slightly more likely that it is named after the welsh merchant as if it were named after Vespucci then it wouldn't be America, it would be Vespucia or something like that as most newly discovered land was named after the surname of the person who payed for the expedition...