First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

Always saying "United States of America" would be rather cumbersome.

But it's the reward for being the first country on the content to become independent. Everybody else afterwards had to pick more specific names tot avoid any confusion.

BTW Columbia was also frequently used as a generic name for the American Continent back in the 1700s and 1800s. The modern country of Colombia co-opted it in a very similar way (well originally "Gran Colombia" was supposed to include entire Hispanic America it just didn't work out that well...)

Then they should have chosen another name

Nope. People from the US really need to get out of that bubble.

Ehh no. In school in Argentina you are taught that the whole continent is called America, then you have subcontinents in it (North/central/south), and I would guess other south american countries are the same. If you want to say citizen of the USA in Argentina you would call them yankees.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_Stat...

A person from the US has been elected as the Pope, you have to come up with a title for this news piece.

You have these two options:

A) First American Pope elected ...

B) First US Pope elected ...

A is ambiguous because "American" means a country for 4% of the world and a continent for 96% of the world. Also, the pope that just died happened to be from Argentina, and also happened to be the "First American Pope" for 96% of the world, adding to the ambiguity.

B does not have any issues and is correct from whichever angle you want to approach it.

Which one do you choose?

Not really. (Also we call English Channel 'La Manche' - even if we do not understand French).

Spanish speaking countries tend to treat America as one continent. English-speaking countries tend to treat North America and South America as separate continents, which is convenient since when speaking English, America means "the United States."

"US Economy"

"US Job Market"

"US Military"

"US Policy"

And many other examples ...

But now that I read about it, when you use it as adjective you have to write as "U.S.".

If you want to throw the whole argument to the trash because it's missing two dots, well ... up to you.

In 50 years, when the U.S. has decided to call itself something else, then yes, this CNN breaking news headline will be ambiguous. But breaking news writes headlines for its current audience, it’s not meant to be a taxonomically accurate index.

I can't think of the last time I needed to describe myself as being from the continent, but if you really want to call yourselves Americans, I say go for it. People can call themselves whatever they like.

Still, I can't help but notice Argentinean newspapers using americano to refer to refer to things from the US.

I have a hard time believing people in South America actually call themselves Americans or are remotely confused about where someone identified as American is from.

This all seems pedantic.

Yes, everyone from the Americas could conceivably be called an American, but the lack of any shared continental cultural identity largely removes any need to self-identify as an inhabitant of the continent. But hey, if people desperately want to call themselves Americans, I say go for it.

Ask foreign speakers if you don't believe it.

Maybe you live in a smaller bubble.

India: "Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old American, has been elected as Pope Leo XIV, making history as the first American to head the Roman Catholic Church." https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/10-facts-ab...

Denmark: "For første gang i verdenshistorien er paven amerikansk." https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/fra-missionaer-i-peru-til-n...

Brazil: "Papa Leão XIV é americano e tem cidadania peruana" https://www.estadao.com.br/brasil/papa-leao-xiv-e-americano-...

Nigeria: "America’s Robert Francis Prevost announced as new pope" https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/05/breaking-americas-robert...

Slovakia: "Lev XIV. je prvý Američan na pápežskom stolci." https://svet.sme.sk/c/23488126/novy-papez-lev-xiv-profil.htm...

Do we? I've literally never heard it called anything other than the English Channel. After some quick googling and gpting, I can't find any reference to it being referred to as "La Manche" outside of France. The closest I got was "Canal de la Mancha" in Spain.

In general, we use north american when referring to the USA. America is used to note the continent, like the south american soccer teams cup, "Copa Libertadores de America" (liberators of America cup).

La Nacion uses americano, but has to specify "continente americano" as if simply saying "americano" wouldn't be clear to readers. They otherwise also use estadounidense and norteamericano.

Neither appears to ever use "americano" by itself to refer to people from the continent, but if you're telling me that if you walked up to someone on the street and said you were an American and they would interpret that as you from the continente americano, then I believe you.

I'm still going to use the demonym American for myself (as everyone gets to pick their own demonym in their own language) and use it to refer to people from the US, but if you to call you an American, who am I to say no? You can call yourself an American, I can call myself an American and everyone is happy.