What is the origin of the name Argentina and what was it called before?

( Spanish) — Why is Argentina called Argentina?

The story is long and, in fact, the South American country was not always called that.

According to the Argentine official page the name comes from the Latin for “silver”, meaning “argentum”, which refers to the discovery by Spanish explorers and from 1530 from different silver deposits in Latin America, which would also give its name to the Río de la Plata.

The first documented use of this name is from 1554, when the Portuguese cartographer Lopo Homen referred to the region as Terra Argentea. Already in 1602 the name Argentina It was used for the first time in a book, signed by Martín del Barco Centenera.

From then on, Argentina and the name argentino/a began to be used unofficially and as cultured way to talk about the region and its inhabitants.

But during Spanish rule, the territory of what would become Argentina first became known as part of the Viceroyalty of Peru and later as the seat of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.

When the May Revolution took place, in 1810, it would be renamed the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, a name and identity later consolidated after the declaration of independence in 1816.

The national anthem of Argentina, sanctioned in 1813 –even before independence–, gives an account of the uses at the time of the name: in its stanzas “To the great Argentine people, cheers!” is sung, but at the same time it speaks of a country called “United Provinces of the South”.

in 1826 official documents they referred to the “Argentine Nation” for the first time, but the name of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata continued to be the most used along with that of the Argentine Confederation.

It was only from 1853, with the sanction of the Constitutionthat the name of the Argentine Republic be turned in official, along with those mentioned above.

And in 1860, finally, the denomination unified: From then until today, the country is known only as the Argentine Republic.