A Rose by Any Other Name...

[Rodskarl Dubhgall]

I wish we could shake off such names as "America" because Vespucci went to Portuguese Brazil, like how "Columbia" belongs more to Spanish Mexico and "Verrazzana" should be for French Haiti. These Latin American countries are in the Bonapartist/Continentalist tradition of self-declared empires, all of which are the realm of "Blacks" or whatnot because of the Slave trade. I know I wouldn't accept Archangelia, on the basis that Russia's ex-colony of Alaska is as Tawny as the Latin American colonies are Black.

Nor would Vinland apply, because that belongs to the Norwegian colonists of Newfoundland. Maybe Cabotia would be better for all the English areas? The original name which inspired New England, was "New Albion". Maybe there could be a federal "District of Virginia" and "United States of New Albion (or England)". There were a few other colonial namesakes for home countries, like New Netherland and New Sweden, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Taking them into account, one questions whether an Anglocentric name could be chosen, but the English were in fact "first" and invited the other four on the basis of compatibility to WASP-hood. The Dutch and Swedes were subsumed within the English colonies (cf. Saxon and Danish contributions to Old Hampshire and Old York in Old England), even as the other two retain their own identities to our present. Compare this fact to how all three major ancestries; German, Irish and English correspond to Brunswick (& Georgia), Scotia (& Carolina) and England (& Virginia) respectively. Is Albion or Cabotia more representative of them all, if Greenland were to join a better "NAFTA" of Germanic peoples (like old Protestant alliance and this is assuming Canada takes part) that would force a secession of the Negro/Hispanic-Catholic and Mongolo/Russian-Orthodox ex-colonies? We still couldn't use Vinland, could we? Would Cabotia be an all around name, rather than Vinland or New Albion, since John Cabot claimed ex-Vinland for England, thus mixing the interests of both Scandinavia and England to reconcile them as the times of old, under Canute the Great?

It's about symbolic representation.

[Athalwulf]

What did native Americans call the lands in their respective areas? Obviously there are going to be language and culture differences in every native tribe, but if the area known as Vinland was not inhabited by natives before the vikings came here, then I would call that area Vinland. If the natives have no name for these lands, then I will call them by the first known European name given to them.

[Oswiu]

Vinland's almost well known now, and sounds good. Englishmen on either side of the Ocean can have no quarrel with it, as we've all got a bit of Viking in us anyway. Those who got there first have the right!

(St Brendan didn't make up a good name for it, so he's disqualified!)

Cabot wasn't even English, was he?

[Athalwulf]

Vinland's almost well known now, and sounds good. Englishmen on either side of the Ocean can have no quarrel with it, as we've all got a bit of Viking in us anyway. Those who got there first have the right!

(St Brendan didn't make up a good name for it, so he's disqualified!)

Cabot wasn't even English, was he?

Cabot was Italian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot

[Rodskarl Dubhgall]

I believe that I am misunderstood. Vinland was for a specific area. I was looking for a more broadly geographical name, that would fit for both eras of colonisation. Newfoundland should be called Vinland again, Labrador called Markland, Nunavut called Helluland and Greenland not go the Eskimo route of toponymy as the liberals are apt to continue. All of the Norse settlements were in Eskimo areas and this is the chief mark of distinction between Iceland as a European (aka Germanic) nation and the New World founded by Eirik the Red, as well as the difference between the Norse and English settlements, which were near Indians rather than Eskimos. I thought that since both the Norse and the English claimed Vinland/Newfoundland, Cabotia would reconcile the two if there were to be a Germanic federation including Greenland, Canada and the Anglo-majority regions of the US, since England's colonies were primarily to the south, inasmuch as Norway's were to the north of this island, aside from the fact that the naming convention after mariners has already been established, just that Cabot served the English rather than any of the Roman Catholic nations.

Obviously, I would support the revival of Virginia for the Atlantic seaboard and Nova Albion for the Pacific Northwest, regardless of what the German and Irish might think about that, as guests of the English household. If there is an alternative to Cabotia other than the usual fallacy of Vinland, then I'm open-eared. That's because I would hope the Norse to reclaim Newfoundland and those areas, just like Virginia for the English. Did you know that Bermuda aka the Somers Isles was a part of that Virginia, although politically separated like Canada from the US? One wonders why Canada doesn't have possession, when in comparable circumstances to the US. Anyways, I was hoping for something neutral between the English and Norse, that doesn't refer to any one of their colonies specifically, but is a perfect bridge and catch-all name between the two.

If you were thinking of Eirik the Red (Greenland) or Leif the Lucky (Vinland), Walter Raleigh (Virginia) or Francis Drake (New Albion)...it is plainly obvious that their discoveries were of local significance and had less general impression in the maritime laws of claim and settlement. Cabot was born within the traditional confines of the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation"; Genoa, rather than the Papal States or the Two Sicilies. I'm not stating the guy is a dead-ringer, but it's better than Columbus Day, belonging as that does to the Latin American areas from Florida southwards. Of course, there could be some other, truly ethnic type of name that might work better than a mariner's, but that's what this discussion may discover through examination of all the possibilities.

[Allenson]

Have a look at Aemeric's thread here:

http://forums.skadi.net/showthread.php?t=93556

[Æmeric]

I would rather rename the Western Hemisphere "Terranova" "Columbia" or even "Occidentalia" (any other suggestions?) and keep America for what is the US. Some of the places you name such as Virginia, the Carolinas & Georgia have names that are historically significant - Queen Elizabeth the Virgin Queen, King Charles, King George. And so what if some states have names that derived from local Amerindian languages, that is just part of the history of the region & besides those tribes are no demographic threat to us - the real threat is coming from Latin America, the Caribbean & Asia. There are plenty of places in Western Europe that have names that are of Celt or Roman origins. Cologne/Koln Germany was the Roman town of Colonia. Any place with the suffix caster or chester in it's name in England has a name that was bequeathed to it by the Romans. I'm just find with the name America, I just don't like sharing it with the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

[Rodskarl Dubhgall]

Sorry, I was trying to figure out a name for the Germanic settlements as a collective, not the Latin or Russian, not the whole Western landmass. This is basically thinking of what name would be suitable for a combination of Greenland, Canada and the States alone, but not for the individual colonies as they've already been named.