Why are Anglicans from America called Episcopalians?
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It was a rebranding exercise after the American Revolution and part of disentangling from allegiance to the English monarchy.
Americans in general looked down on the Church of England after the Revolution, and for a brief time they had a shortage of clergy because they had to take an oath of loyalty to be ordained by the Church of England.
But within a decade the laws were changed to get rid of the loyalty oath, and they had new bishops consecrated in the Church of England again (edit: although to be clear, they kept some previous Church of England Bishops for most of that time too).
The term “Episcopal” comes from their form of Church governance, which kept the hierarchy of bishops in place. Episcopal just comes from the Greek word for Bishop.
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