system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How did the term "Latin" become associated the culture of Spanish descendants if the Latins were a central Italian hill tribe?

edit: Recognizing, of course, the Latin language as the basis for the Romantic languages (French, Romanian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese).  As Rome expanded, did the term "Latin" follow it?  If so, why was it jettisoned as a descriptor for Turkish, Italian, French, German, Greek, North African, Eastern European, Persian and Semitic peoples and not Iberian peoples?
gpt
The term Latin America was first used in the XIX century to describe the part of the Americas that spoke either Spanish, Portuguese or French.

You may argue that Hispanic America or Iberian America would be better terms, but none of these terms refer to Spanish, Portuguese and French at the same time. More importantly, in the context of the fight for independence, people from the region would rather be associated with a more general heritage (the Latin civilization) instead of being associated with the countries they were fighting against (Spain and Portugal).

The term Latin America, which was used initially to describe countries sharing a common linguistic family, started to be used to describe, by extension, a geographic region (that somewhat wrongly includes English and Dutch speaking countries) and later to describe the people coming from these countries. Since most people from Latin America speak Spanish (especially those who immigrate to the USA), the term Latin has been more strongly associated with the Spanish language.