Columbia (name) taken directly from Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels while" a few others were classical or neoclassical in style. Such were Ierne for Ireland, Iberia for Spain, Noveborac for New York (from Eboracum, the Roman name for York) and Columbia for America—at the time used in the sense of "European colonies in the New World". The name was perhaps first coined by Samuel Johnson, thought to have been the author of an introductory essay (in which Columbia already appears) which explained the conceit of substituting Lilliputian for English names; Johnson also wrote down the "Debates" from 1740 to 1743. The name continued
Eboracum "Eburaci", on a wooden stylus tablet from the Roman fortress of Vindolanda in what is now the modern Northumberland. During the Roman period, the name was written both "Eboracum" and "Eburacum" (in nominative form) . The name "Eboracum" comes from the Common Brittonic "Eburākon", which means "yew tree place". The word for "yew" was "*ebura" in Proto-Celtic (cf. Old Irish "ibar" "yew-tree", (older "iobhar"), , "alder buckthorn", "alder buckthorn"), combined with the proprietive suffix "*-āko(n)" "having" (cf. Welsh "-og", Gaelic "-ach") meaning "yew tree place" (cf. "efrog" in Welsh, "eabhrach/iubhrach" in Irish Gaelic and "eabhrach/iobhrach" in Scottish Gaelic, by which