What does it mean to be an American? I’m not asking any deep philosophical or cultural question here, just a lexical one. Who is referred to by the title, American? Using the Encarta Dictionary built into Microsoft Word:

A·mer·i·can¹

n

somebody who was born in or is a citizen of the United States

 adj

1. relating to the United States, its people, its culture, or the form of English spoken there

2. relating to North, South, and Central America

Yet I often see comments from the usual suspects that it is arrogant and untrue that citizens of the United States of America should be called Americans. The argument goes; citizens of many countries inhabit both North and South America, not just the U.S.A. But, of course, the real argument is that everything those rotten Americans do is evil and wrong, including the very words they use to refer to themselves and others.

It seemed immediately obvious to me why it is neither arrogant nor untrue for citizens of the United States of America to be referred to as Americans, but apparently not everyone can see it.  So I looked around the web a bit to see if anyone would see the same logic I do.  I found the correct answer, since it agrees with mine, on WikiAnswers.  I recommend this article to you, as it is short and clear.  It is a bit dry, however.  So I thought I would give you my answer along with some reference material.

The short answer to the question of why citizens of the U.S.A. are called Americans is that The United States of America is the only country in the world with America in its name.  You can check this yourself on many places in the Web.  The United Nations has a web site.  In general, it is as confused, self important and poorly executed as UN policies themselves.  However, it does have a list of UN members in which you can search for America, American and other variations.  You will find only one, The United States of America.

Similar results are obtained searching the list of members of the Organization of American States.  Apparently, despite all of these countries claiming to be American States, only one of them goes so far as to put America in its name, The United States of America. 

So let’s go back to the UN’s list of member states and go into some depth about how countries chose to name themselves. Maybe those United Statesians, have named their country in some unique way.  How many countries use a construction such United Whatever in their names?  You will find four such countries: United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America.  Looking at this list, You see that the latter three go so far as to use the construction United Whatever of Whatever.  Furthermore, all of these three have the same convention of using a form of the second Whatever as the name applied to their citizens: British (or Irish), Tanzanians and Americans.

So the name those U.S.’ers use is not unusual for its lexical construction or for the convention of referring to its citizens by a form of the trailing word.  Perhaps it is unique in the fact that it utilizes the name of a continent.  The other United X of X countries don’t mention their continents.  Perhaps Americans, rather than being arrogant about their place among the continents of the Earth, are really the only country truly proud of their continental position.  Certainly they are the only state in either North of South America displaying pride in their continent. So back to the UN website for another set of searches.

Searching for some European state willing to proudly display their continents name within their countries own, the answer is none.  Of course we need to remember that many European states have names as arcane and incomprehensible as the economic and political theories they espouse.  Let’s give them an honorable mention for calling more and more of their currency the Euro at least.

Perhaps less understandable is the situation in Asia.  Not a single country of this largest and most diverse of continents chooses to display any continental pride in their chosen designations.

How about Africa?  Now we’re getting somewhere. Two counties on this continent boldly show their love of their place in the greater cartographic scheme of the world: the Central African Republic and South Africa. And there seems to be a general increase in continental pride for all citizens, current and past, of African nations.  You certainly hear more people refer to themselves as African Americans than European Americans.

Then we get to the ultimate in continental pride.  A country whose country name is identical to its continent’s name, I give you Australia. There’s certainly no denying the Aussies love of their continent. They don’t even allow any other countries on it.

What about Antarctica, you ask? Don’t be stupid. I’m trying to make a point here.

So, while not unique in the world for our love of continent, we Americans are apparently the only people in our hemisphere who care deeply about which bit of floating rock we poke up out of the oceans on. However, we are generous with our love of our continent. You don’t have to be a citizen of our country, a legal visitor or even a citizen of a country on our continent to be called an American. You just have to get here by hook or crook to hear every major newspaper and TV news show refer to you as an undocumented American.