Leif Erikson
Leif Erikson or Leif Ericson ( 970 – c. 1020) was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He was the first known European to have set foot on continental North America (excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada. Later archaeological evidence suggests that Vinland may have been the areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and that the L'Anse aux Meadows site was a ship repair station.
Naming of the Americas
In this view, native speakers shared this indigenous word with Columbus and members of his crew, and Columbus made landfall in the vicinity of these mountains on his fourth voyage. The name America then spread via oral means throughout Europe relatively quickly even reaching the cartographer Waldseemüller who was  preparing a map of newly reported lands for publication in 1507. Waldseemüller's work in the area of denomination takes on a different aspect in this view:The baptismal passage in the "Cosmographiae Introductio" has commonly been read as argument, in which the author said that he was naming the newly discovered continent in honor of Vespucci and saw no reason for objections. But, as etymologist Joy Rea has suggested, it could also be read as an explanation, in which he indicates that he has heard the New World was called America, and the only explanation lay in Vespucci's name.