Today I Learned (TIL)

6528 readers

1 users here now

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?

/c/til is a community for any true knowledge that you would like to share, regardless of topic or of source.

Share your knowledge and experience!

Rules

Information must be true
Follow site rules
No, you don't have to have literally learned the fact today
Posts must be about something you learned

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

TIL America was named after a obscure German city (www.behindthename.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Many people know that Amerika was named after Amerigo Vespucci. It turns out tha Amerigo is the Medieval Italian name for Emmerich, a rather uninspiring German city close to the Dutch border.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Emmerich is also just an old-fashioned German name. I would assume that the name Amerigo is derived from the name Emmerich, not the town Emmerich.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Fair enough. I do kind of ignore that, as I live quite close to said town, and that's a nice story starter, Like how Rome and jpw not Remulus but Romulus got to name the city.