In 1499, an expedition led by Alonso de Ojeda visited the Venezuelan coast. The stilt houses in the area of Lake Maracaibo reminded the navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, of the city of Venice, so he named the region Veneziola.[31] The name acquired its current spelling as a result of Spanish influence,[31] where the suffix -uela is used as a diminutive term (e.g., plaza / plazuela, cazo / cazuela); thus, the term's original sense would have been that of a "little Venice".[32] The German term for the area, Klein-Venedig, also means little Venice (literally "small Venice").
Although the Vespucci story remains the most popular and accepted version of the origin of the country's name, Martín Fernández de Enciso, a member of the Vespucci and Ojeda crew, gave a different account. In his work Summa de geografía, he states that they found indigenous people who called themselves the Veneciuela. Thus, the name "Venezuela" may have evolved from the native word.[33]