The German geographer and cartographer Martin Waldseemüller (ca. 1470-ca. 1518) was the first to suggest that the newly discovered landmass in the New World should be called America.

Martin Waldseemüller was born at Radolfzell on the Bodensee and matriculated at the University of Freiburg in 1490. Much of Waldseemüller's early life is obscure. He first comes to light as a member of the group of humanist scholars and geographers which thrived at the court of Duke René II of Lorraine and influenced later-16th-century German interest in geography. News of the discoveries in the New World traveled quickly to transalpine Europe, and Alsace and Lorraine soon became important centers of interest and study in the discoveries and their consequences.

When copies of the letters of Amerigo Vespucci arrived at the court, they generated even more interest in the New World, and in 1507 Waldseem...