with an Italian surname.

is what we call people from the United States. No one said he is the first from The Americas. Or the first North American Pope.
If the Pope where from Canada or Mexico, he would be called the first Canadian or Mexican Pope not the first American Pope.
Hope that explains your misconception.

We have North America and South America and what US. Americans call it does not make it right

Je suis Americaine. Ich bin Amerikaner. Is Meiriceánach mé.

to my Canadian colleagues.

in the Americas are called American? Was Bob Marley called an American or a Jamaican?
I saw Francis called the first Latin American Pope, the first Argentinean Pope, but never the first American Pope.
If you can cite articles or News sources that generally referred to him as an American Pope, I would be happy to look.
EVERYONE knows exactly what is meant when they say he is the first American Pope,

People from the USA are called "norteamericanos." People from Latin America are called "americanos."

Latin Americans who live in Spain will tell you, "soy americano/a," and everyone in Spain knows exactly what is meant. People in Spain will be referring to Provost/Leo as "el primer papa norteamericano," although they might also say "de orígen norteamericano" due to his Peruvian citizenship. Too bad this didn't happen Monday, since I was down in Spain for the day. However, I am now in Portugal for a couple of days, and will be meeting with some colleagues who will be coming over from Spain tomorrow, so I will have a better idea by tomorrow night.

What do they say?

At this point, I have lived most of my life where English is not the dominant language. Actually, that seems to be the case on most of the planet. Maybe the Trumpanzees have a secret plan to force everyone to speak English in the future, but if so, it hasn't gained much traction at this point.

What do the Germans call people from the U.S.? The French? The Swedes? The Italians? the Greek? The Dutch? the Norwegians?
I have been in Europe quite a bit, and I don't recall anyone calling me anything but an American.

Except for Greek, I speak all of them. Since I have lived and worked in Central Europe for many years and visit between three and five countries a week for my work, I’d have to be some kind of arrogant idiot not to have learned the languages of the people I work with.

How we (country and people) are referred to will vary, both between written and spoken languages, and also depending on profession. If your job involves shipping, currencies, cultural (e.g. UNESCO issues), commerce, the need to distinguish grows. German media and officialdom call us “US-Amerikaner,” where the spoken language uses the slang “amis.” The French might use the official “nordaméricains,” but call us the derogatory “amérlos” if they think none of us are within earshot. If a discussion involves only the USA, then they might just shorten it to “américains,” but context will determine that. For obvious reasons, they distinguish between “québecois” and “canadiens” for Anglo Canadians. In NL, you could be a VS-Amerikaan or just an amerikaan, depending on context, since NL still maintains close ties with its Dutch-speaking former (or not so former) American colonies like Curaçao, Surinam, St. Maarten, etc.

I’m almost never in Greece and do not speak much of the language at all, so I must defer to your superior knowledge of the local linguistics there.

I have worked with their government there (only in Quito), and they called us “norteamericanos.” I’m not familiar with the rest of the continent, since the only Hispanic country I have actually lived in is Spain, which definitely calls us norteamericanos. Here in Portugal, where I am for work for a couple of days, I ate in a small place Thursday night, and noticed the owner was not European, and spoke to the customers in Latin American accented Spanish. I asked him where he was from, and he said, “soy Americano. Soy de Venezuela.”

Francis was a South American Argentinian.

But I agree that Leo is the first pope born in the US.

Very interesting because the US does not recognize dual citizenship.
So this discussion is moot.😀

you said

of Italian heritage but he was not born in Italy.

refer to people from the USA as Americans.

refer to people from the USA as Americans.

refer to people from the USA as Americans.

American instead of a North American. When others of a like kind are also found in South America, it's preferred to make it clear which America they are from for the sake of clarity.

Canadians, Mexican, Panamanians, Venezuelans, Chileans, Brazilians, and a whole host of other are all Americans.

is there a nomenclature I am not aware of.

In the South that would shoot you if you called them a Yankee.

for more than 50 years.

"From the United States"
That's not awkward at all.

Not awkward.

Here comes the first American Pope.

Ignorant. Like "Gulf of America."

included the Brits, the Canadians, the Australians and the From the United States.

Sure lets just stop using a term everyone uses.

Also noted his Peruvian citizenship.

it's accurate. As is First American Pope.

A United Stateser?

You call someone from Canada a Canadian.

Someone from Mexico a Mexican.

Someone from Brazil and Brazilian.

So, what are we calling someone from the US?

I would call someone from the US either an idiot or a moron.

70 million of us

89 million eligible voters did not vote + 70 million MAGAts = 159 million did not vote for Harris out of 234 million voters. That’s almost 70%. What do you call someone from the US? Either an idiot or a moron.

I am a US citizen. Some of my ancestors actually arrived on the Mayflower - for what the fuck that's worth.

I am an American because I live on an American continent, along with many people from South and Central America. I am prouder to be part of that group than the insular people that think that the "Gulf of Mexico" should be renamed because the (un)United States is the biggest bully.

I promise you no one from Canada refers to themselves as American.

The adjective “estadounidiense” (awkward “United States-er in English, but rolls right along in Castilian) is exactly what we are known as in Spain, as a synonym to “norteamericano.” They say “canadiense” for Canadians.
If I tell them, “soy tejano,” they immediately know what I mean. They are mostly well dialed in to their own history.

In Germany, while there is the slang “ami,” since the Germans love their abbreviations, the news media refer to us as “U.S. Amerikaner.”

And from 1889 to 1968, the official name of Brazil was "The United States of Brazil", so neither the "U.S." nor "America" referred only to the USA.

Or East Asian for that matter.

people from the US called Americans.

This whole argument is pedantic as hell.

strike-throughs are the only 'European' nation states/countries I have not been to

Albania
Andorra
Armenia (often not included in Europe)
Austria
Azerbaijan (often not included in Europe)
Belarus (we decided at the last minute to not go to Minsk whilst we were in Vilnius, Lithuania, and did so for political/security reasons, and certainly now we have to plans to go)
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Georgia (often not included in Europe)
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Republic of Ireland
Italy
Kosovo (is not fully recognised as well) we do plan on going there next time we are in the Balkans
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Moldova (we went with a Swedish friend who had a wife from there, we had a wonderful time, but the overall poverty was a bit depressing, based on a 'western' standard of course)
Monaco
Montenegro
Netherlands
North Macedonia
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia (no chance we would go now)
San Marino (yes, we went there on one of our trips to Italy, just to say we have been there, lolol)
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Vatican City

still got it stamped separately in each EU country. Way back in the day I took fast 2 week tour of the big ones with a bunch of other high school kids. I've been to WEST Germany! Actually same country legallybas now just smaller. I wish I still had that passport. Don't know why I don't. I think maybe you used to have to surrender it when you got a new one. Now they just do something to it. I'll have to look.

time I use my US passport is when I am travelling to the US, and that is not going to be happening again for some time I wager.

The US (at least they did here via the US embassy in Stockholm) mailed me back my old US passport to our house here in Stockholm when I got my new US one. The old one had multiple holes (roughly the width of a biro) punched in it, rendering it useless.

I suggest Amer-Rican ( rhymes with Puerto Rican).

A timely nod to the coming together of the peoples of the Americas.

….and a subtle reminder the we are all people of the Planet Earth and that all borders are artificial.

They may be connected by a land bridge, but so are Africa and Asia. And Europe and Asia are connected by mountain chains.

I can't work out why DUers are trying to deny the normal English terms. What a bizarre thread.

So technically true he's teh first from the U.S.

But. It's also important to note that since we're not called North Americans (or United Statesians) we just call ourselves Americans and so does the rest of the world call US folks "Americans."
If we can be called Americans, so can he.

I'm an American. And Pope Leo XIV is an American. Are you an American?

Because I'm sure no one from Argentina is called 'American' by default. They're called Argentinians.

We were taught to say, "soy de los estados unidos", because north, central and south americans are all americans.

But this one is an eye roll and not even technically correct. Only people from the United States refer to themselves colloquially as American. Canadians, Mexicans, Argentinians, Peruvians, Bralizians. They do not refer to themselves as American.

We do. Because United States was initially a descriptor rather than an appellation, so America was used to denote place.

Pedantry should be in service to clarity. This misses the mark.

This is just Internet “Ackshully . . .” without the fedora tip.

their own logic they are trying to apply to the new Pope being labelled as an American.

Where was he born ?

Where did he live from birth to teens?

After he became a priest, what was his career progression?

He was the cardinal for ??? where?

People move. When someone asks me where I'm from, there are only wrong answers.

He is from Chicago, he left to become a priest at a very young age, around 8th grade I think his brother said, to an Augustinian seminary- that was in an interview with his brother... more here...

"Born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, Prevost served as an altar boy and was ordained as a priest in 1982. Although he moved to Peru three years later, he returned regularly to the US to serve as a pastor and a prior in his home city."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0ln80lzk7ko

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-pope-robert-prevost-pope-leo-xiv/#:~:text=He%20graduated%20from%20Villanova%20University,as%20a%20priest%20in%201982.

......from the Americas” and I’m happy to go along with them.

Leo XIV is also the first pope to come from the Order of Saint Augustine, and the first pope born after World War II.

😀

Because it has the kings and nobility speaking subtitled French. It was such a nice touch to see in an English documentary about that era.

One of my favorite bits about the 12th century (besides Eleanor’s general awesomeness) is the image of Henry II wandering around England with an interpreter because he spoke English so poorly.

12th century England and Wales was my time (before this life 😆 .

I recently started reading Pillars of the Earth by Kenneth Follett during my down time at work. If you're not familiar, it's historical fiction that takes place during the Anarchy about various people managing the instability while trying to build a cathedral. It's pretty good. Taking forever to finish since it's close to 1,000 pages, and I'm reading in bits and pieces throughout the day, lol.

Right now I'm at the point between the exchange of Stephen and Robert of Gloucester and the Siege of Oxford. I believe the novel goes all the way to Henry II and Becket. Its main thread is how bishops and barons began to behave with their own autonomy - and impunity - during this collapse of central authority.

There are five books total taking place in various eras of the Middle Ages. Pillars is book one. Really enjoying it so far. Fairly light reading as these things go, but so. very. long. lol.

I do have a few other Kenneth Follet books still unread, maybe they are part of the series.

There is a book by Amy Kelly - Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings. Her entire life story - the two kings she married and the two kings she bore. Very good read IMHO. Thank you for your insight! Be well!

Thanks for that.

Since you've already read it, that means I can say this - I cannot wait for Henry II to show up and kick Hamleigh's ass, lol. I assume that's where this is all going. Castle-breaker has to get these barons and bishops under thumb.

Chicago Illinois!

They are playing chess, while Dump plays checkers.

But he's from Southside Chicago, so probably not.

but spent much of his life in South America. But I take your point.

He was the eldest of the five children of Mario José Bergoglio and Regina María Sívori. Mario Bergoglio was an Italian immigrant and an accountant from Piedmont. Regina Sívori was a housewife born in Buenos Aires to a family of northern Italian origin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis

And the world uses "America" as a synonym for the USA.

Esta boludez?

Just worried that Trump/Miller will declare EVERYTHING in North, Central and South as United States of America.

And Argentina is a long ways away from the South Side Chicago.

But they referred to me as either The Yank, or the American.

Everybody knows what's meant ny that. C'mon....

In Bolivia, for saying “soy americana.”
I bristle when Brits refer to me as an American, but I get why they do it. I live here and fewer do it nowadays as my accent has become more non-descript. When I am in Latin America, or speaking to Latin Americans, I say “soy estadounidense” or “de los estados unidos”

“estadounidense“ could mean you are from Mexico.

I lived there a long time. Mexicans, however, do not use estadounidense as a way to refer to themselves, despite Estados Unidos Mexicanos being the full legal name of the country.

Everyone knows American means from the USA.

Ask a Canadian where they’re from. They don’t say America. Nor do Mexicans, Brazilians, Argentinians and so on.

I'm friends with lots of various South Americans and they call me American. Argentinians are really touchy about it for some reason. I just don't know why they care so much? They call themselves Argentines, not American. No one else calls themselves Americans but us.

They're just upset with the US dominance for the past 2 centuries and just want to try to take something away from us. I'm not a nationalist, but I willingly call myself American overseas and don't really care what anyone thinks. No one has ever called me a Yankee either. I think this is a really outdated term and only someone old would say that.

Last edited Sat May 10, 2025, 09:32 AM - Edit history (1)

They would say "Yo soy Cubano" or whatever country they are residents of! They know what an Americano is.

The same things for other North Americans whether they are from Mexico or Canada.

Pulling things out of a hat, are we?

It's been a "thing" for centuries. American is generally understood to mean from the United States. Language is about conveying meaning, not nit-picking the technical meaning of every word.

Last edited Fri May 9, 2025, 06:59 PM - Edit history (1)

it's not part of any other name. This was discussed in my college class in the 1970s.