# Why is Christopher Columbus's name spelled differently in different languages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 5, 2001, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889 "2001-04-05T06:18:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pezwookiee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@pezwookiee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pezwookiee)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2001, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/1 "2001-04-05T06:18:21Z")
Christopher Columbus. Cristophe Columbe. Christobal… heck, I’m never gonna get all of these spellings right, so I’ll just put out the question. Why is Chistopher Columbus’s name different in different languages? For that matter, why are country’s names different in different languages? Shouldn’t proper nouns be proper nouns and that’s it? (Although I guess it does add some spice.) I’m confused. ---
**Author:** ![pezwookiee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@pezwookiee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pezwookiee)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2001, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/2 "2001-04-05T06:59:21Z")
Holy crap, I didn’t even see the “Why isn’t it ROMA everywhere?” thread. Dang. That’s weird. Sorry folks. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2001, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/3 "2001-04-05T12:17:47Z")
In Spanish it’s something like “Cristobal Colon” (spelling probably botched; high school Span class was a loong time ago). I’ve always thought that this was wierd because people’s names aren’t usually translated. It’s easier to explain differing names in the case of countries. A nation’s name for itself usually means “our people” or “us” or something similar. Other nations’ names for that nations usally translate as “those rude assholes across the river” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![catholicguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@catholicguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catholicguy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2001, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/4 "2001-04-05T17:52:41Z")
When I was on a high-school trip to Europe, I once almost missed my train stop in Prauge because the station sign said “Praha.” Things would be alot easier if we just called places what the people that live there call them. (Except for Washing DC, wich should be called “That Stinking Hole Where Complete Strangers Screw With Other People’s Lives” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2001, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/5 "2001-04-06T00:16:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diceman \* > \*\*In Spanish it’s something like “Cristobal Colon” (spelling probably botched; high school Span class was a loong time ago). I’ve always thought that this was wierd because people’s names aren’t usually translated. \*\* Actually, Spanish has a much more of tendency to translate names than English does. I have, for example, seen English kings referred to by the Spanish trabslation of their names, something that is not normally done in the reverse case. Colombus, of course, used several different forms of his name during his own lifetime. As a Genoese, he would have been born Cristoforo Columbo. When he moved to Spain, he would have adopted the local version of his Christian name, Cristóbal. I am not certain of the derivation of Colón, but “Columbo” means dove and this may be an archaic form of the word in Spanish. Columbus is the Latinized form of his surname. It was typical of the time (and for centuries thereafter, e.g. Karl Linne = Carolus Linneaus) to adopt such aliases, and that is the form used in English. This type of translation is not limited to Columbus. His contempory explorer Giovanni Caboto, also from Italy, sailed for England, and his name has come down to us as John Cabot. One individual today whose name is nearly always translated into the local language is His Holiness Giovanni Paolo/John Paul/Juan Pablo/Jean Paul II. ---
**Author:** ![Kyomara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8edcca/32.png) [@Kyomara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyomara)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2001, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/6 "2001-04-06T01:32:14Z")
I’m pretty sure (though not absolutely positive) that such names got latinized in order to fit them into Latin texts (as scholarly texts at the time were written in Latin and Latinizing the names made it easier to fit them into the grammar). The same was done for Erasmus and Confucious, among countless others. If there is anyone who knows more about Lating grammar (because I know jack) please feel free to correct me. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2001, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/7 "2001-04-06T03:38:35Z")
We visited the island of Gomera, in the Canary Islands, which is where Columbus sailed from when he discovered America. We were with a busload of French people and after touring the island, they gave us time to walk thru the small town. We looked and looked for a sign and finally asked where the house he stayed was. We were in front of it and there was a large sign “Colon”. The biggest lesson I learned that day was that Europeans are not the least bit interested in Columbus, but when you think about it, why should they be? ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2001, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/8 "2001-04-06T11:16:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Colibri \* > \*\*It was typical of the time (and for centuries thereafter, e.g. Karl Linne = Carolus Linneaus) to adopt such aliases, and that is the form used in English. > \*\* No way. It’s the other way round. In those days the Swedish clergy had the habit of latinising their names, and his father had taken the family name Lind, which was transposed into Linnaeus, after a linden tree, that grew in the garden of the vicarage. However, when Karl Linneaus was nobled he changed his name to Carl von Linné, which is how he is known in Sweden. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2001, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/9 "2001-04-06T15:09:09Z")
After a little digging around, I see that Christopher Columbus’ birth name was Cristoforo Colombo (not Columbo, as I had it). He successively signed his name as Colombo, Colomo, Colom (the form used in Portugal) and finally Colón, the Spanish form he preferred and the one assumed by his descendants. He himself never used the Latinized form Columbus even when writing in Latin. Thanks to Floater on the correction on Linneaus. However, I’ll stand by the statement that European scientists and intellectuals in that era frequently Latinized their birth names, especially in international communications. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2001, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/10 "2001-04-06T16:53:13Z")
How Colombo became Colón . . . before sailing for Spain, he hung out with the Portuguese, and as **Colibri** noted, they called him “Colom” (which is only one consonant shorter than the French form, Colombe). Going from Italian to French to Portuguese, he kept shedding sounds off the end of his name (this is called apocope, pronounced “a pock a pea”). Here’s the thing about Spanish: the Spanish phonological system does not like -m at the end of a word. Spanish tends to replace final -m with -n. Look at a Spanish Bible: Abraham is renamed Abrahán. The Spanish baseball player doesn’t hit a home run; he hits a “_jonrón_.” Latin _cum_ \> Spanish _con_. See the pattern? So when he moves from Portugal to Spain and says his name is “Colom,” for the Spaniards that automatically becomes “Colón.” During the Middle Ages, when most writing was in Latin, a person’s name would be recast in a Latinate form just to allow for grammatical inflection. But in the Renaissance, thanks to the spread of Classical learning, it became fashionable to actually translate the meaning of one’s name into a classical language. Gerhard Kramer (whose name means ‘merchant’ in German) published his maps under the name Mercator. A fellow named Schwarzerd (black earth) published his works under the name Melanchthon. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2001, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/11 "2001-04-08T00:00:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\*How Colombo became Colón . . . before sailing for Spain, he hung out with the Portuguese, and as **Colibri** noted, they called him “Colom” > > Here’s the thing about Spanish: the Spanish phonological system does not like -m at the end of a word. > So when he moves from Portugal to Spain and says his name is “Colom,” for the Spaniards that automatically becomes “Colón.” > > During the Middle Ages, when most writing was in Latin, a person’s name would be recast in a Latinate form just to allow for grammatical inflection. But in the Renaissance, thanks to the spread of Classical learning, it became fashionable to actually translate the meaning of one’s name into a classical language. Gerhard Kramer (whose name means ‘merchant’ in German) published his maps under the name Mercator. \*\* Thank you, this was a very good explanation of it. Essentially “Cristoforo Colombo” – “The Dove That Bears Christ,” how’s that for a name that sentences you to do something big with your life? – makes it to Portugal translating and shortening his name to fit the local language; when he gets to Castille, the Castillians just transpose it to their phonetic system. Spanish _was_ very heavy on the translation of person names from history (Jorge Washington; Guillermo el Conquistador; Cayo Julio César). But that was standard practice at one point or another in most of the West (Jeanne d’Arc --\> Joan of Arc; Fernando de Magallanhes --\> Ferdinand Magellan; K’ung Fu-Tzu --\> Confucius) jrd ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2001, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-christopher-columbuss-name-spelled-differently-in-different-languages/60889/12 "2001-04-08T00:17:12Z")
Yeah, that sort of thing used to be done in English more than it is now. William Blake, discussing the French Revolution, wrote of “King Lewis.”