One reason for the slow adoption was related to the word's origin, as one of many insults employed by landline telegraph operators at the time, for it originally meant a "poor operator".("Ham" was also already in more general use as a slang word meaning "incompetent", most commonly in the phrase "ham actor".) Early radio (initially known as wireless telegraphy) included many former wire telegraph operators, and within the new service "ham" was employed as a pejorative term by professional radiotelegraph operators to suggest that amateur enthusiasts were unskilled
Every licensed Radio Amateur is given a call sign that is used to identify you and your location of license. Each country that has Amateur Radio status is allocated a range of call signs by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). See below for pages containing these country allocations.