The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

Venezuela and Venus and Venice

The name Venezuela has nothing to do with Venus, but the chap who thought it up was related to her by marriage.

Amerigo Vespucci was a Florentine explorer with three claims to fame. First, and most obscurely, he was the cousin of a nobleman called Marco Vespucci. Marco married a girl called Simonetta Cataneo, who was possibly the most beautiful woman who ever lived. So beautiful was she, that even after she had died (in 1476) Botticelli still used his memory of her (and the myriad portraits that already existed) as the model for his ‘Birth of Venus’.

But to return to Amerigo: not being as noble as his cousin, Amerigo was sent to work in a bank. However, the world of finance couldn’t hold him and, at the invitation of the King of Portugal, he set off on an early expedition to the New World. On his return he wrote several accounts of his travels. These accounts were written in Latin and so he signed his name using the Latin form of Amerigo: Americus.

One of these accounts fell into the hands of a man called Martin Landseemuller, who, being a map-maker, ran off and made a map with the New World marked on it. He was going to call it Americus, but decided that ending a continent name with –us simply wouldn’t do. Africa, Asia and Europa all ended with the feminine A, so he called it America instead.

Finally, Amerigo Vespucci named part of South America Little Venice, or in Spanish, Venezuela, because lots of the local tribesmen lived in huts that were built out into the water and supported by stilts, making it a sort of ramshackle miniature Venice.