Well, everybody born in the american continent is technically “american” too, including Central and South America. Is there a specific term in english for these people?
Edit: Thanks for all your answers, especially the wholesome ones and those patient enough to explain it thoroughly. Since we (South Americans) and you (North Americans) use different models/conventions of continent boundaries, it makes sense for you to go by “Americans”, while it doesn’t for us.
It's always been funny to me when latin Americans get pissy at the term American being used to describe the country who's president is Biden ( said with love as mx) . They always try to correct Americans to "estados unidenses" United Statean. Which in my opinion doesn't work for 3 reasons. First name recognition most of the world associate Americans with 'merica. 2nd it's a difficult set of words for Anglo speakers especially vs Americano. Thirdly there are actually 2 countries thats proper name include "United States" those are united states of American and United States of Mexico, who colloquially are known as America and Mexico respectively.
There's also United States of Brazil.But you've got "Mexican" and "Brazilian" for both of those countries that include United States in their proper names.
I'd continue to say "United statean" in Spanish because that's an accepted name in the Spanish language. There's no confusion to what country you're referring to.
But in English it is a lost battle. If you mean to include people from the entire continent, you'd have to say "American, as in the continent".
Edit: The current official name of Brazil is Federative Republic of Brazil.
America is 2 continents, it'd be easier to say North American/South American. There is rarely a reason to lump both continents together. No one refers to people from Europe or Asia as Eurasians
There are multiple models for continents. The English speaking world uses the 7 continent model. But non-English countries often use a different model. There is a 6 continent model which considers the Americas to be a single continen. It is used much more commonly in Latin and South Americas.
The models of the world that you learned in school are not universal truths.
I am brazilian, and "estadunidense" works perfectly for our daily needs cuz ya know, no one mentions Mexico as "United states"
Oh, fun - I just used Brazilians as an example in another comment. Would you ever say "I'm American" when you're talking about your continent?
Yes! But usually we are more specific by saying "I am south american"