Martin Waldseemüller

He's back in the news, the guy who invented the name "America." The last known surviving copy of the 1507 map he drew, inspired by Amerigo ("Americus") Vespucci's account of explorations, has been sold by Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg for $10 million to the U.S. Library of Congress.

Don't you love these names? The cartographer's is even better than the prince's, although "Wolfegg" has a certain charm. ("Egge" means "harrow," but that probably has nothing to do with it. Ever seen a wolf farming? I didn't think so.) "Waldseemüller" names both the ancestral occupation, and the approximate address. I may start signing myself Gottfried Dorfschreiber because I live in a village (Greenwich Village), or maybe Grossapfelschreiber or even Großapfelschreiber. What do you think?