The Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) is better known by the Latinized version of his name, Americus Vespucius. Beginning in 1497 he was involved in expeditions that explored the coast of South America.
1518), was impressed by this and, in 1507, when he published a map showing the new lands as a separate continent and not as part of Asia, he proposed that the new continent be named America after Americus Vespucius.