[crazygringo]

I've been baffled by this for the longest time.

Why does "Bank of America" get to call itself that? Growing up there was a "USA Federal" credit union [1] too, with a stylized American flag logo.

Similarly there's a historic "New Yorker" hotel in New York City, and the totally separate "New Yorker" magazine, neither of which have any official affiliation with the city.

The short answer is that no, there don't seem to be regulations against it. Why any business seems to be able to take the name of a country or state or city, and therefore gain an aura of authenticity or approval, and then prevent any other from doing the same (since the name got taken, you can't have two Bank of Americas) -- I've never understood why the government allows these things.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Federal_Credit_Union

[nradov]

America is a pair of continents, not the name of a country. The US federal government doesn't hold a trademark. The notion that companies shouldn't be allowed to name themselves after geographic features or political regions is absurd.

[crazygringo]

In the US, if you ask 100 people what "America" is, they'll tell you it's the name of the country they live in. And since language is defined by use, yes -- America is the name of a country. The shortened version, of course, just like "Mexico" is the shortened version of the "United Mexican States". Surely you're not going to claim that Mexico isn't the name of a country either?

And no, "America" is not a pair of continents in standard usage -- that's "the Americas" you're probably thinking of (plural and with the definite article). Which is a rare term to come across, essentially unused in regular conversation, reserved for some highly specific contexts.

And I'm saying that companies being able to name themselves after political regions is absurd. How is that fair? I don't get to name my company "Google Bank" (and make it seem falsely associated with Google), so why should I get to name my company "New York Bank" (and make it seem falsely associated with New York)?

[bee_rider]

Asking people in the US seems like a sort of skewed sample; surely everyone in the Americas at least should get a vote on whether or not they want to distinguish more clearly between the continents and this one large country some of us happen to live in.

I do agree though that it is not so ambiguous really in the case of America, the Americas, North America, and South America—because there isn’t a singular “America” continent to refer to (unless we want to dip into the nightmare that is counting and naming the continents; Europe is a subcontinent, I’ll happily die on that hill). But “American” seems a little ambiguous, what else should we call somebody from the Americas, if we want to refer to them in that context? Nobody would say “An Americasian.”

[mthoms]

We Canadians use “America” and “The States” interchangeably to describe the United States and we’re not the least bit bothered by it.

If we want to refer to the continent we’ll just say North America.

[devilbunny]

This is one of those places where in some languages - Spanish, of course, and I would assume Portuguese - "americano" (or equivalent) basically means "Western Hemisphere". But in others, like English, "America" means the United States of America, just like "Mexico" means the United Mexican States. If you're using English, "North American", "Central American", and "South American" cover most of the situations you're talking about. "American" without further qualification in English means the USA. And it is justifiable: there is exactly one country on the planet with "America" in its name.

[BobbyTables2]

I still never understood how we appropriated two whole continents.

If my name were “Bob of Idaho”, nobody would think Idaho meant only me. They would simply know I lived there.

Yes the United States are in the Americas, but it isn’t the entirety of them!

We have no more right to call ourselves “American” than Chileans do!

[sgift]

From my outsider perspective it's by being by far the most important country on the continent in terms of size, influence, economy and so on. Also, it's (afaik? cannot think of a counter-example) the only country which has America in its name and usually people talk about countries, not continents.

[vundercind]

It helps that a demonym for “person who lives in any part of the Americas” is something we almost never want to use. If “American” only meant that, we’d practically never use it.

So in American English, at least, using it the way we do causes no real trouble.

[jodrellblank]

Why would it be “falsely” associated if you actually are in New York?

What if you change your name to John New York then named the company after yourself, is that bad?

[Dylan16807]

> Why would it be “falsely” associated if you actually are in New York?

Because it equally associates it with the other millions of people there.

> What if you change your name to John New York then named the company after yourself, is that bad?

Yes. And it's not like you can change your name to John Disney and then start branding all sorts of things Disney.

[shkkmo]

Travel to some other american countries and ask them what they think of the appropriation of the word. Not everyone is a fan.

I don't really get how you think a company using the name of the country is wrong but somehow a country appropriating the name of the continent is just fine?

[DiggyJohnson]

I think you’re getting offended on behalf of a cohort of people that do not exist. Let them speak for themselves if they do.

[shkkmo]

Do some traveling and broaden your horizons. It isn't a particularly novel or even rare opinion.

"American" is one of the idiocies of the English language, and you'll notice it is the only language that presumes that that word refers only to US citizens.

[DiggyJohnson]

If we are talking about how people use this work in other languages, then yea of course I don't know what or how they use that language. I assumed we were talking about English spoken in the West.

[EasyMark]

In common parlance, in both the US and abroad, it's commonly used as an agnomen for the USA, and that's okay. When people need to be more specific, they can say North America, South America, or "the Americas". It's fine, it works and isn't confusing.

[lupusreal]

In America, the pair of continents are know as "the Americas". Every American knows singular 'America' refers to America.

> But in other countries we say-

Other countries exist?

[ianburrell]

More importantly, in English, America is the US and the Americas are the continents.

It is sort of irrelevant what other countries call America or if they divide up the continents differently. Other languages name things differently.

[verisimi]

Even the federal reserve is privately owned though.

[ianburrell]

The Federal Reserve is not privately owned. Parts of the Federal Reserve System are privately owned. The most important part, the Federal Reserve Board, is an independent federal agency like the FAA and SEC. The board members are appointed by President and confirmed by Congress.

The Federal Open Market Committee controls monetary policy. It is composed of seven Board members and five regional bank presidents.

The regional Federal Reserve Banks implemented monetary policy. They are privately owned by member banks, but legally considered both government and private.

The important thing is that the Board is at the top and controls the lower levels.

[throwawaymaths]

Sort of. It's actually worse. It gets to claim privately owned when being government is inconvenient; it gets to claim delegated authority from government when that's convenient.