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

Sure but most of the world, when they say America or American, they mean the USA, otherwise they'll say "the Americas" or "North American" or "South American" or refer to a specific country. It's just a reality that a lot of people don't want to face, but you have to be pragmatic in life for the most part.

>Sure but most of the world, when they say America or American, they mean the USA.

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

> most of the world, when they say America or American, they mean the US

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.

OK, but English speakers are under no obligation to follow conventions and vocabulary used by Spanish speakers. Similarly, the Poles, French and English all have their own words for Germany that look nothing like "Deutschland". (The Polish word for Germany is Niemcy. The French word is Allemagne.)

> Sure but most of the world

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

Sure, but the op said "most of the world", which is not true, I gave a counter example.

giving a single counter example does not mean "most of the world" is not true here

Do Argentinians regularly refer to themselves as Americans?

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.

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

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...

> Also we call English Channel 'La Manche' - even if we do not understand French

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.

I see the same thing in lots of Spanish news, but some people will never believe it, so I usually just make my statement that I know is true and let the other commenters have their say as well, and leave it up to dear readers to make up their own minds.

For the pope, La Nacion and Clarin, the 2 largest newspapers in the country, are referring to him as "Norteamericano"(north american), and "Estadounidense" (USAian?/from the USA).

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).

For the article on the pope, Clarin seems to have used estadounidense, norteamericano and americano to refer to things and people from the US, though americano in reference to "imperialismo americano." Well, I'm assuming that's the US given the mention of the CIA, but perhaps they are referring to some sort of pan-continental imperialism I'm unaware of.

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.