Did you know that America was almost called Vespucia? I'm not referring to the United States, by the way. More than five hundred years, the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci determined that the continent "discovered" by Christopher Columbus in 1492 was not, in fact, Asia.

This simple realization was apparently enough to warrant naming two continents after the man. Vespucci's first name, "Amerigo," was translated into the Latin "Americus," and voila – North and South America were born. But it wasn't inevitable that this would be the case. In fact, it is rather unusual for a first name rather than a last one to be emblazoned on an individual's legacy. As it turns out, this thought also occurred to the European Council which named these new worlds. 

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Source: http://goodmenproject.com/