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Cuba was at war with Spain since 2/24/1895. In fact, it was the third war against Spain for their independence. US arrived to the war in 1898, after the Maine's explosion. Very wise when Cubans had the war almost won.
But the other side of the history is that this war is known as Guerra hispano-cubano-norteamericana in the period when US entered in the war.
Naming conventions can seem a bit weird. For example, here in the States we know the Seven Years' War (well, to the extent that we know it at all) as the French and Indian War because... it was fought between the French and... the English, with various Native American tribes joining in on the French side. Southern sympathizers liked to call the American Civil War the War of Northern Aggression. I'd imagine that the English don't really care to call the Revolutionary War by the same name (or perhaps even refer to it as a war).
If anything, I'd say the Spanish-American War is more descriptive than a lot of those names. The US did, in the end, fight against the Spanish, even if they did so primarily in Cuba, and the spoils of that conflict certainly indicate that the USA was up against all of Spain - they took home not just Cuba but also the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. In fact, there were even a couple of (relatively minor) pitched battles in the Pacific Ocean:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manila_Bay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manila_(1898)
For that matter, Puerto Rico saw some action:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_Campaign
I'm sorry, but this was flat-out not just a war (however short) about only Cuba. It was the United States' first real foray into imperialism (setting aside the "Manifest Destiny" expansion across the North American continent).
It's called the Spanish-American War because it was a war between the USA and Spain. While Cuba was part of it, a center of much of the action, the goal was to "liberate" the "oppressed" "natives" of the tattered remains of Spain's global empire from their "despotic" "masters". The proof in the pudding was Spain's behavior in Cuba.
The United States had just fulfilled it's "Manifest Destiny." Therefore the time had come to take up the "White Man's Burden" and "spread democracy" to the places that could use it most and were easiest to take over. Once the democratic occupiers had "raised up" the "natives" to an appropriate level of self-government (or fought hard enough for liberation, as the case may be), they would be eligible for independence - Cuba in 1902, Philippines in 1946, Puerto Rico and Guam, never.
Back in 2003 I was surprised at a used book sale to find a history of the Spanish American War from very shortly after the war, in which the discourse to justify US actions was a dead ringer for George W. Bush vis-a-vis Iraq. I even read paragraphs of it to my Western Civ class and they couldn't tell that it wasn't about Iraq. Sorry I don't have more info on that book, I've long since given the book to the person I would turn to for a better answer to this question: Jason Colby, author of The Business of Empire: United Fruit, Race, and U.S. Expansion in Central America", available on Kindle.
The Spanish-American War took place in 1898. Cuba became independent only in 1902. History records February 24, 1895 as the date, when the (preceding) Cuban War of Independence began. The latter war turned into the former when America intervened.
If one were to refer to the Spanish-Cuban-American War instead of Spanish-American-War, others could perhaps make the argument that it should be the Spanish-Cuban-American-Catalan (or even Spanish-Cuban-American-Catalan-Texan) War on the (off) chance that Catalonia (and even Texas) will become independent countries one day.
To a Cuban, it looks like a "Spanish Cuban, (North) American" war.
But to a (North) American, it looks like a war on several fronts against Spain, of which Cuba was one. Other battlefields included Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
To the American way of thinking, it was a transfer of Spain's (remaining) overseas empire to the rising Americans. Cuba's revolution was advanced enough for her to assert her independence from America (although this was somewhat nominal until 1959). But the others just fell into the lap of the victors, and history is usually written by the victors.
From an American point of view, Cuba was what America didn't get, which is why Americans would likely omit "Cuba" from their description of the war.
