“In fourteen hundred ninety-two / Columbus sailed the ocean blue” are the opening lines of a poem that, for many of us, marks the first fragment of historical lore we learned in grade school. The question that quickly follows is “Why are we named America and not Columbia?” The answer to that query lies in who did the naming. It is indisputable that Christopher Columbus was the first European in the series of explorations that historians define as the Age of Exploration to make landfall on the continents at the western edge of the Atlantic Ocean. However, he never fully recognized the magnitude of his four voyages or the “discoveries” that he had made. From his first reports to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1493 through his last reports in 1504, Columbus staunchly defended his claim that he had made landfall and established an all-water route to Asia. Thus, the naming of the newly discovered landmasses was left to those who first recognized them as distinct.