 Early representations of the gift-giver from Church history and folklore, notably St Nicholas, merged with the English character Father Christmas to create the mythical character known to Americans and the rest of the English-speaking world as "Santa Claus" (a phonetic derivation of "Sinterklaas" in Dutch).In the English and later British colonies of North America, and later in the United States, British and Dutch versions of the gift-giver merged further.For example, in Washington Irving's "History of New York" (1809), "Sinterklaas" was Americanized into "Santa Claus" (a name first used in the American press in 1773) but lost his bishop's apparel, and was at first pictured as a thick-bellied Dutch sailor with a pipe in a green winter coat.