Who discovered it:
Leif Eriksson
Half a millennium before Columbus “discovered” America, those Viking feet may have been the first European ones to ever have touched North American soil. Exploration was a family business for the expedition's leader, Leif Eriksson (variations of his last name include Erickson, Ericson, Erikson, Ericsson and Eiriksson).
Why they named it america:
America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who set forth the then revolutionary concept that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent. ... He included on the map data gathered by Vespucci during his voyages of 1501-1502 to the New World.