<P> In Swahili, Marekani means specifically the United States, and Mwamarekani is a U.S. national, whereas the international form Amerika refers to the continents, and Mwaamerika would be an inhabitants thereof . Likewise, the Esperanto word Ameriko refers to the continents . For the country there is the term Usono . Thus, a citizen of the United States is an usonano, whereas an amerikano is an inhabitant of the Americas . </P> <P> In Hungarian the term amerikai (American) refers to a person or a thing from the United States . </P> <P> The name America was coined by Martin Waldseemüller from Americus Vespucius, the Latinized version of the name of Amerigo Vespucci (1454--1512), the Italian explorer who mapped South America's east coast and the Caribbean Sea in the early 16th century . Later, Vespucci's published letters were the basis of Waldseemüller's 1507 map, which is the first usage of America . The adjective American subsequently denoted the New World . </P> <P> 16th - century European usage of American denoted the native inhabitants of the New World . The earliest recorded use of this term in English is in Thomas Hacket's 1568 translation of André Thévet's book France Antarctique; Thévet himself had referred to the natives as Ameriques . In the following century, the term was extended to European settlers and their descendants in the Americas . The earliest recorded use of "English - American" dates to 1648, in Thomas Gage's The English - American his travail by sea and land: or, a new survey of the West India's . </P>

Where does the word america come from and what does it mean