These actions begin the formation of the place and the people called Nephi. Nephi says that they journeyed many days in the wilderness. Nephi doesn’t define wilderness. If we use the basic geography of the lands that depends upon later descriptions, this wilderness would be the mountainous range separating the coast from highland Guatemala. Later descriptions will fit with the description of a people living in that region, so this assumption of what the wilderness was seems plausible.
The fact that this new people were separated by many days and a mountain range probably meant to them that they were relatively safe from pursuit. In Mesoamerica, major rival cities were only three days journey from one to the other. Thus, that distance was a reasonable separation for enemy populations.
What is important from Nephi’s words is that his name is supplied to the place and to the people. We will see that this tradition of naming the city for the leader who establishes it will persist through the Book of Mormon.
At this point, there is certainly no nation that might be called Nephite, but there is a collection of people living in the same place who identified Nephi as their leader.