Movies had taught me that China meant Middle Kingdom. The app I'm using to study Chinese just broke down the characters for America, and it's Beautiful/Good Kingdom. How did America get this name? Was it based on America's reputation in China, or did the character Mei just seem like the closest sound to America?
or did the character Mei just seem like the closest sound to America?
This is exactly it. A whole bunch of countries have Chinese names that are phonetic approximations. So like the UK is called Grand Country, not because it's actually grand, but because Ying1Guo2 is kind of like England. Plenty of them don't even have that Guo/Country suffix--so you have Yi4Da4Li4 for Italy, and He2Lan2 for the Netherlands (Holland), which are just words shoved together.