Richard Amerike - Theory of The Naming of America

Theory of The Naming of America

In 1908, the local Bristol antiquarian Alfred Hudd first proposed the theory that the word America had evolved from Amerike or ap Meryk, based on a lost manuscript that he claimed to have seen. Alfred Hudd was an aristocrat who belonged to the Clifton Antiquarian Club of Bristol, founded in 1884 to arrange meetings and excursions for the study of objects of archaeological interest in the West of England and South Wales. He also collected butterflies, was a naturalist and member of the Bristol Naturalists' Society.

Hudd proposed that the word "America" was originally applied to a destination across the western ocean, possibly an island or a fishing station in Newfoundland. After the king of Iceland had cut off trade for fish, England sent out expeditions to find new sources. Hudd suggested Amerike's sponsorship made his name known in Bristol in association with the North American destinations prior to other mapmaking or voyages. The writer Jonathan Cohen noted he made a conjectural leap to reach that conclusion, and no extant evidence supports it. In 2001, scholar John Davies briefly mentioned the story as a kind of Welsh patriot piece.

The traditionally accepted person attributed to the naming is cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, who used the Latinized feminine form of Amerigo Vespucci's first name, "America", on his world map of 1507, which has survived the centuries.