Talk:Names of the United States

Justification for this article

I know a page with this name was previously deleted; however, this article is significantly different in that it provides a detailed etymology and history for various names of the United States, as well as a summary of standard English usage. Note that similar pages exist for Canada and Myanmar. I will continue to add to this article, probably adding more to the Usage section and adding a section about translation in foreign languages.

The original purpose of this article was to provide a "main article" for the "Etymology" section of the much larger article United States; about 1/4 of the content here is from that section originally. Sincerely, Ovinus (talk) 06:27, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 10:49, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that the name "United States" was originally plural, but gradually transitioned after the Civil War to being a singular noun?

Created by Ovinus Real (talk). Self-nominated at 13:09, 6 September 2020 (UTC).

• This article is new enough and long enough. The hook facts are cited inline, the article is neutral and I detected no copyright issues. No QPQ is needed. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:09, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Hi, I came by to promote this, but one paragraph has a citation needed tag and another is tagged for a better source. See Rule D2. Yoninah (talk) 19:29, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

• I have removed the unsourced material (and will likely restore it, once I can verify its ultimate source is the OED), and added an RS for the Hindi translation. Also, not sure if I'm supposed to ping you, but @Yoninah: Ovinus (talk) 20:53, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you. Restoring tick per Cwmhiraeth's review. Yoninah (talk) 10:48, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Isn't Mexico also an United States?

Officially Mexico is named as United Mexican States. While googling, I hoped this article solved my question which other countries have united states in their name. The title should specify "…of America" in the end. Kautr (talk) 06:54, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

There used to be a list at United States (disambiguation), but User:Shhhnotsoloud just recently deleted it, which might be why you couldn't find it. Perhaps they can explain to you how you can find such a list without looking in the history of that page, because there is no easy way now for a wikinovice to find it, but the rules must be followed, no matter how inconvenient it may be to readers like you.

As to why this article and the main United States article don't use "of America" in the title, it because, in English, "United States" is both the primary topic and the common name for the country. Interestingly, most Latin American countries do not like the fact that the United States uses "of America", and worse, despises the term "Americans being used for citizens of the U.S. This is primarily because they consider the Americas to be one continent called "América", and consider all residents of this single continent to be "Americans"/"Americanos". Instead, Latin Americans, including Mexicans, and other Spanish speakers refer to a U.S. citizen as "estadounidense" (literally "United Statesian"). Oddly enough, the Mexicans don't mind a US citizen being called "estadounidense", and will do so themselves, but calling such a citizen an "American" is very much frowned upon. BilCat (talk) 07:53, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@Kautr: see List of countries that include United States in their name. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:39, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@BilCat: There was a list at United States (disambiguation) of countries that had "United States" in their title, and I did delete it. That is because a disambiguation page is "a non-article page that lists and links to encyclopedia articles covering topics that could have had the same title" (WP:DPAGE). Mexico should not be included at United States (disambiguation) because there are no circumstances under which it may be referred to as "United States". To rebut the implied criticism in "... the rules must be followed, no matter how inconvenient it may be...", I have created List of countries that include United States in their name. Improvements to that list are very welcome. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:39, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@Shhhnotsoloud: Thanks for the new article. It's damn well categorized, although I'm not an expert in the topic.--Kautr (talk) 11:14, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@Shhhnotsoloud: My apologies for coming on too strong in my comments. However, thanks very much for putting that list together. I was.considering doing that myself, but sleep beckoned, and I ran out of time. Quite frankly, you probably did a better job at that than I would have done. BilCat (talk) 18:31, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@BilCat: I see. I just learned recently from a comment about a Mexican saying that Mexicans are also USians/United-Statians/Usonians (plus Mexico is in the North American continent). I live in Brazil and in geography classes we were teached that América is the continent and American is for all pan-Americans/New Worlders, "estadunidense" is commonly used for Americans. Since then, I avoid UnitedStatian iterations.--Kautr (talk) 11:14, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, different cultures approach things differently, even matters like geography where one might think there is only on approach. The best thing to do is to be respectful of other people's points of view, and adapt to the view around you. One thing many Latin Americans don't understand is that the entire native English speaking world generally refers to US citizens as Americans, and the country as "America ". Latin Americans who find the usage offensive are often unaware that many other countries refer to the US as "America", thinking their usage is predominant, when it isn't. BilCat (talk) 18:31, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Lead rephrasing

@BilCat Regarding the revert you made, the way the lead is phrased, it makes it seem like "United States" and "America" are on the same footing in terms of what to use for the country, as well as making it seem like the latter is an abbreviation for the full name; neither of these are true. "America" is not an official name of the country anywhere, nor is it an abbreviation of the full name. The lead goes on further to list "colloquial" names for the country, which seems to imply that "America" is not colloquial, which is also not true.

It seems like you didn't like my rephrasing of the lead, since "the States" and "the U.S. of A" apparently are not in the same class of colloquialisms as "America". I agree, which is why I rephrased the word from "colloquial" to the more generic "informal". Feel free to suggest alternative wording that would better capture this distinction. Getsnoopy (talk) 23:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

While not "official", it's certainly very common in English, especially outside of the US. I just don't like including with "the States" and "the U.S. of A", but I'm open to rewording it further. Do you have any other suggestions? Perhaps add " colloquial" back to the latter two, and keep infoboxes "informal" for "America" (not my favored term, but I'd accept it as a compromise here). BilCat (talk) 00:06, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine with keeping both. Perhaps it could be reworded as Alternatives to the full name include "the United States", the initialisms "U.S." and "U.S.A.", and the informal "America"; colloquial names include "the States" and "the U.S. of A." Getsnoopy (talk) 23:34, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

It works for me. BilCat (talk) 00:17, 24 May 2023 (UTC)