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.
In french you can say états-unien and you might translate it as States-nan
In Italian “statunitensi”, i.e. United States people
So, basically every language has a specific word for US citizens, except english? LOL
Because in many languages that are not English, America is the whole continent. What Americans call “America” is United States of America. We need a word for their citizens, that is not the name of the inhabitants of the whole continent