It's because people associate colons with butt holes.
this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2025
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They're not the same person, district of Columbia is named after the female personification of the United States, Columbia.
"Columbia The Gem Of The Ocean" was almost the national anthem.
EDIT: One of its lyrics was "thy banners make tyranny tremble." That wouldn't work today, would it, considering we are under, well, tyranny.
Oh. Thanks. Did not know that.
If only we knew where she got her name...
It's very clear where she got her name, but it's the reason for the difference in spelling.
First of all his name wasn't even Christopher lol.
The original Spanish name of Christopher Columbus is Cristóbal Colón, that's why it's the name they honored him
He wasn't Spanish. That was just his name translated from Italian into Spanish. Cristoforo Colombo.
I know but the question he asked matches the spanish name. Maybe some spanish influence in the naming.
There are even more versions:
Colombia
Columbia
Colón
Colombo
Columbus
Colomb
Colom
Places were usually named by settlers according to the rules of their own language. Columbus is the Latin variant, Colón is Spanish, Colombo Italian.
Back in 15th-16th century translating personal names was common. The practice is still continues with monarchs today, see popes - John Paul ll was also Iohannes Paulus, Juan Pablo, Ivan Pavao ...
Colombia
Columbia
Colón
Colombo
Columbus
Colomb
Colom
Uhhhh... Just one more spelling, Sir, if you don't mind...
Never realized Pablo = Paul. Neat!
There's a bit in an Agatha Christie Poirot story about how if composer Guiseppe Verdi had been English he'd have been "Joe Green". I'm not sure if Verdi ever used a translation, but it's known that Beethoven referred to himself (or allowed himself to be referred to) as "Louis" in French. "Ludwig" is the German equivalent of that name.
I can recommend behindthename.com if this sort of thing piques your interest.
See now I'm curious how Sri Lanka's capital city got its name.
Seems like we're not entirely sure, but the most widely-accepted theory is that Portuguese sailors heard a Sinhala name and got it a little muddled when telling others Europeans about it
One British guy who got captured there while working for the East India Company wrote that it was this, except for that Europeans intentionally named it after Christopher Columbus because it already sounded really similar
Last names weren't really a thing until very recently in human history.
That's why a lot of last names are places or jobs.
You were Chris the Farmer, or Chris from Cleveland. And when your king wanted a last name to tax you more accurately, you likely didn't give a fuck and just said whatever.
But the thing is people would say names/jobs in different languages.
An immigrant from Germany who spoke mostly German would say "My name is John Deutsch". if they were fluent in English they may say "My name is John German".
Same guy. Describing himself the same way, just in two different languages.
Fo Colombus specifically, that's not even his name in his native language. It was Columbo, which meant Dove and given mostly to orphans, but at least his dad had the same name. Whenever last names became standard, Columbus's oldest living direct ancestor was an orphan
So like, it's not asking why just the places named after him are different, it's why he had different names.
And the answer is people just really didn't care that much about names until very recently.
Did you mean the Genoese navigator Cristoforo Colombo?
I think it is using Latin vs Greek suffixes
Probably related to why America is named after Amerigo Vespucci.
I see no reason why anyone could properly disapprove of a name derived from that of Amerigo, the discoverer, a man of sagacious genius. A suitable form would be Amerige, meaning Land of Amerigo, or America, since Europe and Asia have received women's names.