The town was named for Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci is credited with discovering South America in the early 1500’s. Map makers used different Latin versions of his name to describe the “New World”. “America” is the Latin feminine version and “Americus” the masculine version of Amerigo. During this time, map makers were trying to decide on a new name for Vespucci’s continent. Famous German map maker, Martin Waldseemuller, created a map signifying this new continent as “America” in honor of Amerigo Vespucci. The map maker chose the Latin feminine version of Amerigo because he wanted to have the new name of the continent end in an “a” similar to other continents like Africa and Asia. The name “America” and other derivatives of Amerigo caught on and became very popular in naming the “New World”.