Columbia, “The Dove” is a reference to Queen Semiramis of Babylon where Freemasons got their start not Columbus the explorer. Besides Columbia is feminine.- Excerpt from Columbus researcher Manuel Rosa. “Peter Martyr, writing in Latin, always called the discoverer by the correct Latin form Colonus and never Columbus.As I have written many times before, the name Christopher Columbus is not the correct name of the discoverer.His correct name in Spanish is Cristóbal Colón which gives us Christopher Colonus in Latin, while the Latin Christopher Columbus would give us Cristóbal Paloma in Spanish, Columbus/Paloma can never equal Colonus/Colon.You can see how the name Colon (from the Greek meaning Member) began to get corrupted to Colom (Catalan meaning Pigeon) and then to Colombo (Italian meaning Pigeon) and finally to Columbus, which means Pigeon in Latin.” http://christo-colon.blogspot.com/