Columba is one of the sweetest and most gentle of all words in sound and
sense, yet it has not been in such universal use as might have been
expected from its reference to the dove of peace.
A virgin martyr in Gaul, and another in Spain, were both called Columba;
and Columbina must at one time have prevailed in Italy, as a peasant
name, since from the waiting damsel in the impromptu comedies that the
poetical Italians loved to act, it passed to the light-footed maiden of
modern farce, and now is seldom used save for her and the columbine, the
dove-flower, so called from the resemblance of the curled spurs of its
four purple petals to doves drinking.
It was from his gentle character that Crimthan, the great and admirable
son of the House of Neill, was called Columba, a fitting name for him
who was truly a dove of peace to the wild Hebrides. In Ireland this good
man is generally called St. Columkill, St. Columb of the cell, or
monastery, because of the numbers of these centres of Christian
instruction founded by him, and he is thus distinguished from a second
Columb, called after him. He has, indeed, left strong traces on the
nomenclature of the country that he evangelized. Colin, so frequent
among the Scots of all ranks, is the direct descendant of Columba,
though it is often confounded with the French Colin, from Nicolas, who
is the chief Colin of modern Arcadia, and perhaps has the best right to
the feminine invention of Colinette. Besides this, it was the frequent
custom to be called Gillie-colum and Maol-colm, the disciple, or
shaveling, of Columb, from whence arose Malcolm, one of the most
national of Scottish names. Colan, probably called after the patron
saint of the place, was married at St. Columb Magna, in Cornwall, in
1752; but earlier it was Columb for men, Columba for women, both now
disused.
Columbanus, another great Irish missionary saint, was probably called,
after old Latin custom, by the adoptive formed from Columba. His
influence on the Continent, newly broken and almost heathenized by the
Teutonic invasions, was so extensive, reaching as it did from Brittany
to Switzerland, and still marked by the relics of Irish art in the books
of the monasteries of his foundation, that we wonder not to find more
traces of his name. His day, November 1st, is called by the Germans St.
Colman’s, and it is thought that the surnames Kohl and Kohlmann are
remains of his name, as well as the French Coulon. So, too, the Genoese
Colon was by historians identified with Columbus, when they Latinized
the mariner who “gave a new world to Spain.” Two spots in that new world
bear his name, that in Terra Firma, where he landed on his third voyage,
and the bishopric newly founded in Vancouver’s Isle.
The Slavonian dove is Golubica, a cognate word to this and sometimes
used as a name.[77]