The name "America" is from the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci who was incorrectly given credit for "discovering" the land mass. More properly, it should probably be called Columbia, but another country further to the south has already taken that name and even the Bush administration probably wouldn't want to create an incident by trying to steal it back. However, the "D.C." in "Washington, D.C." does stand for "District of Columbia" and virtually every state has a city or town named "Columbia" in it (the best-known being in South Carolina and Missouri) and the Northwest's mightiest river is the Columbia. Of course, the whole issue ignores the fact that there were millions of people already living here when the continent was "discovered" by Europeans. However, they have taken a small parcel of revenge by saddling the names of many of our states, cities, towns, counties and rivers with unpronounceable names like "Opelika".

The term "United States" was born when the original thirteen British colonies, who had come to view themselves as independent political entities, hence "states", chose to "unite" in the form of a federation. The name is a reflection of their wish to retain a large number of their powers for themselves as opposed to ceding them all to the central government. Had the founding fathers chosen to give all powers to the central government, they may have named the country a simple one-word name like most of the others in the world.