section_path: Etymology
section_name: Etymology
paragraph_text: Etymology
  
  The description of the region by the word Argentina has been found on a Venetian map in 1536.
  
  In English, the name Argentina comes from the Spanish language; however, the naming itself is not Spanish, but Italian. Argentina (masculine argentino) means in Italian '(made) of silver, silver coloured', derived from the Latin argentum for silver. In Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is often used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said l'Argentina.
  
  The name Argentina was probably first given by the Venetian and Genoese navigators, such as Giovanni Caboto. In Spanish and Portuguese, the words for 'silver' are respectively plata and prata and '(made) of silver' is plateado and prateado, although argento for 'silver' and argentado for 'covered in silver' exist in Spanish. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin.
  
  The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region. Although "Argentina" was already in common usage by the 18th century, the country was formally named " Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata " by the Spanish Empire, and " United Provinces of the Río de la Plata " after independence.
  
  The 1826 constitution included the first use of the name "Argentine Republic" in legal documents. The name "Argentine Confederation" was also commonly used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the country's name as "Argentine Republic", and that year's constitutional amendment ruled all the names since 1810 as legally valid.
  
  In English, the country was traditionally called "the Argentine", mimicking the typical Spanish usage la Argentina and perhaps resulting from a mistaken shortening of the fuller name 'Argentine Republic'. 'The Argentine' fell out of fashion during the mid-to-late 20th century, and now the country is referred to as "Argentina".