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Things Unexpectedly Named After People
- logicallee 6y agoAlong the same lines, I was very surprised to learn "sandwich" was named after its inventor! (Earl of Sandwich.) Guy literally invented the sandwich and had it named after him.
- rusbus 6y agoAlso, the term "Guy" which is an eponym for Guy Fawkes https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/guy#Etymology_1 https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/guy#Etymology_1
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoWhenever I think of Guy I think of that one Guy from Galaxy Quest. I don't know if he even had a last name though.
- jobigoud 6y agoGuy Fleegman
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoI like to think of him as Crewman number 6.
- sukilot 6y agoAnd it's obverse, Che. (The famous person is named after the generic word for "some guy")
- dhosek 6y agoWhen I first encountered that in a Facebook post, I was skeptical but since I happened to be at the library at the time and mere feet away from a hardcopy OED. The OED corroborated it.
- dolmen 6y agoIn french, a waste container is called "une poubelle". From the name of the prefect Eugène Poubelle who decided the collection of waste in Paris in 1884. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poubelle https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poubelle
- jsnell 6y agoThis isn't just a list of things named after people, but "unexpectedly named". For example "Main Street" being named after a person is surprising since you'd usually expect it to come from "main" in the sense of "principal". "Price Club" is funny since you'd expect that it's referring to low prices. Is there another pre-existing meaning for "poubelle" that makes this naming unexpected?
- thaumasiotes 6y agoI think you're reading too much into the list. What's the non-name meaning of "Debian" supposed to be?
- delaaxe 6y agoIt’s still unexpected
- jhbadger 6y agoNamed after a person named "Deb" (without the ian). Like the word "Jeffersonian" meaning the philosophy attributed to Thomas Jefferson.
- giomasce 6y agoNo, Ian is just another name (Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian). Deb is after Debra, who then was his girlfriend and then wife. After that Murdock left Debian and the two divorced, but the name had stuck and there it is still now.
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- evgen 6y agoSilhouette, named for a French finance minister back in the 18th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silhouette https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silhouette Eponyms can be very weird sometimes. The path from austerity-pushing minister to artistic rendering of outline in profile must have been a bit odd.
- sukilot 6y agoRelated to austerity, Melba Toast.
- erdosjr 6y agoThe Elo rating system in chess is often written in capital letters, but it is not an acronym. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo. https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1327/what-does-elo-stand-for https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1327/what-does-elo...
- new2628 6y agoA double twist is that in the original Hungarian his name is Élő that means "Live". For the first few decades of hearing "Élő"-score, I just assumed it meant your "live" score, as in your score at the current time. I wonder if others had that confusion too.
- matsemann 6y agoIn chess there's even a difference between the "live elo rating" which is calculated every match, and the official FIDE rating updated every month.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ivoras 6y agoThe Mars bar was named after the company, which was named after the person, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Clarence_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Clarence_Mars . Also, M&M's.
- Anthony-G 6y agoThanks for clearing that up for me. When I saw that the Aldi copy of a Mars bar is called Titan[1], I idly wondered if they were continuing a theme of celestial objects or Greco-Roman deities. I had been leaning more towards the celestial object them due to the existence of Galaxy chocolate[2] and Milky Way bars[3]. On the other hand, Snickers bars [4] were called Marathon bars when I was growing up and this could have been a reference to the classical Greek battle (the Wikipedia page doesn’t say where this name comes from but I’d guess that it’s intended to imply that the bar will provide you with enough energy to a long distance). [1] https://external-preview.redd.it/w9bXzLbNqBFPIEnkI8H73sV5D8nwDRpfdCeA6gwJdTQ.jpg?auto=webp&s=b63bbbb710c4215982c0458ec4bb502fdf2d3111 https://external-preview.redd.it/w9bXzLbNqBFPIEnkI8H73sV5D8n... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_(chocolate) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_(chocolate) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way_(chocolate_bar) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way_(chocolate_bar) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snickers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snickers
- flohofwoe 6y agoQuite obvious omission for every C/C++ programmer, but: https://www.godbolt.org/ https://www.godbolt.org/ Of course the "offical" name is "Compiler Explorer", but everybody just refers to it as "Godbolt" (probably because of the URL), which I thought is a weird but interesting name for a programming tool until I learned much too late that a certain "Matt Godbolt" has created it :D
- tyingq 6y agoThere's a common story that referring to a toilet as a "crapper" was related to Thomas Crapper. Apparently, not true, despite his influence in the field. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper
- riffraff 6y agoThat is true of Sandwich (earl of) tho, which I find fun.
- thepangolino 6y agoPoubelle, the trash can In French is directly named after a Mr Poubelle.
- yxhuvud 6y agoCheddar, also. Which is the reason cheeses from anywhere can be called a cheddar as long as it is made the right way.
- meagher 6y agoSort of an obvious one, but MariaDB is named after Michael Widenius’s other child, Maria.
- TheRealSteel 6y agoMost of these are great. Taco Bell makes sense to me however - I didn't expect to buy bells there. If it had been named after a Melanie Taco or similar, THAT would've been notable. My contribution: Lake Mountain in Victoria! "There is no lake at Lake Mountain, the area was named after George Lake, who was the Surveyor-General of the area including the mountain." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mountain_(Victoria) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mountain_(Victoria)
- crazygringo 6y agoI had always assumed the bell managed to reference both a dinner bell (food) and a mission bell (California, with its Hispanic population, hence Tex-Mex). I'm blown away it's just the founder's name.
- overcast 6y agoI don't believe it would have been called Taco Smith. It happened to be that the dudes last name made sense in the context of a dinner bell being rung for tacos.
- krallja 6y agoTaco John’s is a reasonably successful chain with a similar name.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoThat really isn't similar in terms of usage. "Taco John" is a person's nickname. (And then, Taco John's is just the place that belongs to Taco John.) But you wouldn't call someone by their last name.
- morcheeba 6y agoRichard and Maurice McDonald, Wilber Hardee, and Little Caesars are all counter examples.
- swyx 6y agoThe color #663399 is named "rebeccapurple", after Rebecca Meyer, who passed away at age 6. https://css-tricks.com/rebbeccapurple-663399/ https://css-tricks.com/rebbeccapurple-663399/ was unexpected to me when i first learned CSS, and now is a bittersweet memory i gladly pass on.
- bigtones 6y agoNamed by Eric Meyer, one of the inventors of CSS. His blog posts on Rebecca are heartbreaking: https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/category/personal/rebecca/ https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/category/personal/rebecca...
- swyx 6y agoheavy read. thanks for sharing. i'm gonna go hug my sister.
- TimSchumann 6y agoThat hit hard. Thanks for sharing.
- javajosh 6y agoHeartbreaking but what a wonderful way to memorialize her. Thanks for sharing.
- swyx 6y ago6 year olds dying of brain cancer is my best evidence for the non existence of God
- missedthecue 6y agoI'm surprised that should he exist, everyone assumes he is obligated to interdict himself in the affairs of men. If I'm honest, it's a little arrogant of us.
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- ezoe 6y agoPageRank was named after Larry Page? MySQL is named after the one of co-founder's daughter, My? I knew the Debian. but this is mind boggling.
- tyingq 6y ago"PageRank was named after Larry Page?" Interesting to me, as I thought it was Brin's idea, and 3 people worked on the paper.
- sangnoir 6y agoThat is all true, but they might still have agreed to name it after Larry Page - I'm certain they all had a sense of humor
- schoen 6y agoCompare the αβγ paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpher%E2%80%93Bethe%E2%80%93Gamow_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpher%E2%80%93Bethe%E2%80%93G...
- naringas 6y agoI had always assumed it was called PageRank because it ranks (web)pages
- Anarch157a 6y agoMySQL's fork, MariaBD, is also named after one os Widenius' daughters.
- mkl 6y agoMy favourite is the Heaviside function [1], which is named after Oliver Heaviside [2], who just happened to have an appropriate name for a function with one heavy side! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaviside_step_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaviside_step_function [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside
- tgb 6y agoOr Čech cohomology, usually denoted with the check "v" above characters.
- avmich 6y agoIt's a joke between students of quantum mechanics that to get operator from a function according to the principle of least action you have to put "^" above the function name.
- TomMarius 6y ago(Čech means "a Czech person")
- labster 6y agoI thought so, but thanks for doubleczeching.
- perl4ever 6y agoI don't have a clue about the math, but I liked the puns in the preface to Knuth's "Concrete Mathematics": "When [Knuth] taught Concrete Mathematics at Stanford for the first time, he explained the somewhat strange title by saying that it was his attempt to teach a math course that was hard instead of soft. He announced that, contrary to the expectations of some of his colleagues, he was not going to teach the Theory of Aggregates, nor Stone's Embedding Theorem, nor even the Stone-Čech compactification. (Several students from the civil engineering department got up and quietly left the room.)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone%E2%80%93%C4%8Cech_compactification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone%E2%80%93%C4%8Cech_compac...
- itsEtai 6y agoPilates are named after Joe Pilates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilates
- zdw 6y agoMany of these are just words subject to multiple interpretations, one of which happens to be a person's proper name, similar to the old linguistic teaser: "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana"
- kevml 6y agoThe Outerbridge Crossing really surprised me! I had always assumed it was the most outer bridge crossing from New Jersey into New York. Another piece of local infrastructure named after the architect is the Holland Tunnel. It’s not named after the region in Europe and has no relation to New York originally being settled by the Dutch.
- kevinmchugh 6y agoNot eponymous, but I've always thought it strange that there's no connection between the names of Jamaica in Queens and the Carribean island.
- madcaptenor 6y agoIt's called a "crossing" because otherwise it would be the "Outerbridge Bridge".
- thedogeye 6y agoDon’t forget “Crap” named after Thomas Crapper
- dragonwriter 6y agoThomas Crapper, the inventor of many toilet features, including the floating ballcock, is not the origin of “crap” (which is of Middle English origin, and was used in the sense of excrement and the act of expelling it earlier than Crapper’s work), but is apparently the origin of “crapper” as a term for the fixture one uses for crap.
- logicchains 6y agoThe Children's python: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_python https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_python. Not actually a suitable pet for children, rather it's named after John George Children.
- monocularvision 6y agoMy contribution: Snowflake, AZ named after Erastus Snow and William Jordon Flake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake,_Arizona https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake,_Arizona).
- Cass 6y agoThe Cueva de los Verdes, a famous cave on Lanzarote, was named after the Verdes family and contains nothing green. (Well worth seeing if you ever get a chance to go.)
- HanShotFirst 6y agoThe leotard is named after its inventor, French acrobat Jules Léotard: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leotard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leotard
- torstenvl 6y agoNoob Saibot, the Mortal Kombat character, is named after John Tobias and Ed Boon.
- DavidVoid 6y agoSideburns aren't called sideburns just because they're on the sides of your face; sideburns were originally called burnsides after the American Civil War general Ambrose Burnside [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Burnside#Sideburns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Burnside#Sideburns
- tobyhinloopen 6y agoWho decided to flip the words though
- jld 6y agoI believe it was Thomas J Flip, in 1911.
- fattire 6y agoFlip Wilson, comedian and volleyball inventor.
- DonHopkins 6y agoChip Flip, inventor of the Flip Chip. He's also the godfather of the Big and Little Indian Brothers.
- jiggliemon 6y ago#cancelsideburns
- JadeNB 6y agoThere is a Texas town called Iraan that I assumed when passing through it must have something to do with the Mideast country, but is actually much more simply named after Ira and Ann. (So why not Iraann?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraan,_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraan,_Texas
- hojjat12000 6y agoThat always baffled me. Never bothered to check. Thanks.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoGoing down the wiki rabbit hole on this led me to the very sad history of Ian Murdock, founder of Debian (Deb was his girlfriend's name at the time). Apparently he hanged himself in 2015 after a somewhat bizarre tweet storm announcing his suicide.
- aravindgp 6y agoIan Murdock( his name ) & his wife name debra ...debian. (wkipedia) docker Inc ....Not sure if its coincidence...he was working for Docker Inc. (Ian Murdock...last four letters "dock" docker inc.)... However very sad ending..another gem lost de excessive poiice harassment....like aaron.
- pfarrell 6y agoI have no corroboration for this, it is a personal speculation. At Sun, Ian Murdock also started an OS project called “Indiana”. I have wondered if this was a happy coincidence that Ian was substring of Indiana. Of course, he also lived in that state.
- macintux 6y agoIn fact Ian moved back here (Indiana) to found Progeny, before working at Sun. I was sufficiently shocked to find a genuine Linux company in Indiana I had to apply immediately.
- astura 6y agoI remember discussing Ian Murdock's death on HN at the time, feels like it was only like a year ago, not several. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12050263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12050263
- devenson 6y agoIf you know a girl named Mercedes, she might be named after a car company which was named after someone's daughter. https://www.mercedesbenzchicago.com/what-does-the-mercedes-benz-name-mean/ https://www.mercedesbenzchicago.com/what-does-the-mercedes-b...
- mobilefriendly 6y agoConversely, Porsche is named for Ferdinand Porsche and not the female name.
- russellbeattie 6y agoThe female name is normally spelled "Portia", from the main character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Haven't you ever seen A Fish Called Wanda??
- dhosek 6y agoMercedes is a common Spanish first name meaning "mercies" and is the short version of one of the titles of the Virgin Mary. But then, a lot of Spanish names for girls are titles of the Virgin Mary.
- jld 6y agoLeatherman multitools are named after the inventor, Timothy S. Leatherman.
- acwan93 6y agoThe city of Morgan Hill, CA is actually named after the rancher in the area, not the hill that’s in the city limits. That’s called El Toro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Hill%2C_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Hill%2C_California
- fulmicoton 6y agoBridgestone.
- TMWNN 6y agoYes. It would be natural to assume that the company was named in imitation of the established Firestone tire company (itself named for founder Harvey Firestone), but Bridgestone's Japanese founder's name means "Stone Bridge". Even more fitting, Bridgestone now owns Firestone.
- Alex3917 6y agoThe gold standard for scientific trials is named after a professor named Harry Gold. And the Johari window is named after two guys named Joe and Harry.
- tofof 6y agoCan you provide a citation for Harry Gold? All I find is a chemist convicted of spying for the Soviets. I find [1] which outright declares the etymology is from the economic term, and that it was popularized in medicine by Peter Rudd in 1979, or from a 1962 punning usage referring to literal gold salts. The economic sense of a gold specie currency has uses going back to at least 1764 [3][4][5]. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC557893/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC557893/ 2: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/299414/where-does-describing-something-as-the-gold-standard-come-from https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/299414/where-doe... 3: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?corpus=15&smoothing=3&content=gold+standard&year_start=1700 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?corpus=15&smoothing=3&... 4: From 1767 https://www.google.com/books/edition/An_Inquiry_Into_the_Principles_of_Politi/Jd5SAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22gold+standard%22&pg=PR27&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/An_Inquiry_Into_the_Pri... 5: From 1764 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ames_Library_Pamphlet_Collection/RCyDs_QL5i8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=gold%20standard https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ames_Library_Pamphlet_C...
- Alex3917 6y agohttps://books.google.com/books?id=wk-OxcTKyi4C&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=gold+standard+named+after+%22harry+gold%22&source=bl&ots=AXrPH2ypGm&sig=_cy8sz_s8L2OL3a-9jHnB-Xwl_8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMv5WQ0sfYAhXLRt8KHbVUB14Q6AEINTAC#v=onepage&q=gold%20standard%20named%20after%20%22harry%20gold%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=wk-OxcTKyi4C&pg=PA105&lpg=... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3714297/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3714297/
- tofof 6y agoBoth publications notably do not capitalize 'gold standard'. The first book simply calls it 'aptly named', pointing out the aptronym, but does not attribute the name to Harry Gold. The NCBI says that Fisher (the famous statistician) established placebo with randomized control trial 'gold standard'. It is coincidental that Harry Gold, a pharmacologist, is the progenitor of placebo therapy in American medicine - as the NCBI notes, placebo therapy is "as old as medicine itself".
- PaulAJ 6y agoWhat about the D C Power Building which houses the Stanford AI Lab? It was named after Donald Clinton Power.
- air7 6y agoI find this post and comments to be surprisingly delightful. I'll aggregate the scattered gems in the comments here: - Sideburns : Named after the American Civil War general Ambrose Burnside. - Heaviside function (a mathematical step function) : named after Oliver Heaviside - The Children's python (animal) : Named after John George Children. - Snowflake, AZ : Named after Erastus Snow and William Jordon Flake. - Lake Mountain, Victoria : No lake. Named after George Lake, who was the Surveyor-General of the area including the mountain. [*] Search for the relevant comment for more info and references.
- javajosh 6y agoNice. As an aside, how do you pronounce Heaviside? Is it hevy-side or heevy-side or...?
- jrh206 6y agoHeavy side - it’s a pun
- function_seven 6y agoMy first interpretation was heveh-side or hevi-side. I have no idea what the correct pronunciation is. But between you and me, I think we have some viable candidates.
- n4r9 6y agoAt university in the UK it was always pronounced heavy-side.
- javajosh 6y agoSame. I guess I'll continue saying it that way. But I always feel so awkward about it!
- delecti 6y agoFrom the IPA pronunciation guide of Oliver Heaviside's wikipedia page (mouse over the bit in parenthesis right after his name at the top of the page), "heavy side", with a slight emphasis on the first syllable of "heavy". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside
- muglug 6y agoThe “pap” in Pap smear is short for Papanikolaou
- kriskrunch 6y agoGerman Chocolate Cake owes its name to an English-American chocolate maker named Samuel German.
- dmurray 6y agoThat's a great one
- kevinmchugh 6y agoYou might make your German Chocolate Cake with Baker's Chocolate, a popular American brand of baking chocolate, named for Dr. William Baker, who founded a chocolate importing company.
- fsckboy 6y agoNot so much you might, but you most likely would have used Baker's chocolate: Mr. German, the baker/chocolatier, worked for Baker's chocolate when he invented his dark chocolate formulation, and German's chocolate was sold under the Baker's Chocolate brand. All this took place over 150 yrs ago. The cake made from German's chocolate was invented by a housewife in the 1950's and the recipe published in a newspaper; General Foods, by then the owner of Bakers, took notice and started to include the recipe in its packaging. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_chocolate_cake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_chocolate_cake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Baker_%26_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Baker_%26_Company
- giomasce 6y agoBuses are often called "pullman" in Italy. For long time I thought it was because the pull men (and women) along the road, but instead it appears there are named after some George Pullman. Also in Italy, the loop highway around Rome is known as GRA, which stands for "Grande Raccordo Anulare" ("Big Annular Highway"), but that is just a backronym: originally it is also the surname of Eugenio Gra, the engineer who designed it.
- JadeNB 6y ago> Buses are often called "pullman" in Italy. For long time I thought it was because the pull men (and women) along the road, but instead it appears there are named after some George Pullman. Known in the US as the eponym of sleeper cars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_(car_or_coach) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_(car_or_coach) .
- taejo 6y agoRelated to "big annular": why does the Latin word for ring have a diminutive suffix (-ulus), even when it refers to big rings? Well, of course because anus came to refer to one very specific ring.
- giomasce 6y agoI am not sure of what is the historical order of things: in Latin the word "anus" does also mean "ring" or "circle", although it later came to only retain its anatomical meaning, while its diminutive retained the general meaning. But as for what caused what, I have no idea. Let me just note that there are other words that descend from the Latin diminutive instead of the basic form. For example, "castrum" with its diminutive "castellum" became "castello" in Italian and "castle" in English, while the base form was retained only in toponyms (the suffix "chester" in English and "castro" in Italian). As for "anellus", I see no compelling reason to use the diminutive instead of the base form. I guess it's just an artifact of time (with a funny result: since Italian has again suffixes for diminutive and augmentative, we can use the words "castellino" and "castellone", literally a "little little castrum" and "big little castrum"; confusing!).
- rob74 6y agoMunich has (at least) two streets unexpectedly named after people - Passauerstraße and Dessauerstraße. The problem of these people is that their names are derived from well-known cities, so everyone just assumes that the streets are named after the cities. The only thing indicating that they are actually named after people is that the street names are written as one word - streets named after places are supposed to be written as two words (e.g. Landshuter Allee), but many people get this wrong even without this twist...
- llimos 6y agoFrench Hill neighborhood in Jerusalem. Named after British general John French. Amusingly, erroneously translated into Hebrew as giv'at tzarfatit - the word for the French nationality. * Full disclosure: Wikipedia claims it's not true. But it's disputed and I have heard this story from local historians.
- JadeNB 6y ago> Named after British general John French. Who drove me crazy in an audiobook I listened to recently on WWI, whose author, one can only assume intentionally, kept deploying phrases like (very roughly paraphrased from memory) "As a British officer, French hated and distrusted the French, who resented being commanded by a Briton."
- xvedejas 6y agoAshley Pond in Los Alamos, NM is a pond named after a man named Ashley Pond. It might be more correctly called Ashley Pond pond?
- dredmorbius 6y agoThere is a long list of tautological place names, most often where multiple languates are ised in the name. "Rio Grande River" means "Big River River" (rio being river and grande big). "Kill" is Dutch for creek (e.g., Fishkill). "Avon" is Celtic (Gaelic, Irish, Welch) for river (River Avon). "Hatchie" is Choctaw for river (Loosahatchie River) "Mississippi" is Anishinaabe for "big river". Similarly Mekong, Cuyahoga, Wadi (or the Hispanified "guada"), Molopo, Ouse, Reka, Upė, Walla, "ci-" perfix (Java), Owen, and otheers in different refions. Bothmia, Chad, Laguna, Lagunita, "-kal", Loch, bach, Michigan are all other terms for bodies of water (lakes, bays, etc.). Gibralteer, knock (cnoc), Montana, Morro, Killimanjaro (killi), pen or pendell, pic ("peak), mesa. Etc., etc., etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam...
- thelibrarian 6y agoThe best example of this is Torpenhow Hill in Cumbria, England. Torr, penn, and howe all mean “hill” in different languages.
- dredmorbius 6y agoThere are several such triples: - Eas Fors Waterfall - Deschutes Falls, Tumwater, Washington - Lochmere Lake, Cary, North Carolina - Bredon Hill, Pendle Hill, (hill hill hill) - Nesoddtangen (cape cape cape) - Wookey Hole Caves (cave cave cave) Lake Semerwater is a near-quad: lake lake lake water. Then there are double doubles: The La Brea Tar Pits (the the tar tar pits).
- wolf550e 6y agoin fiction, Castle DunBroch from Disney's Brave.
- vortico 6y agoSabian, the cymbal manufacturer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabian), was named after Sally, Billy, and Andy Zildjian, the children of Robert Zildjian, when he had a conflict with his brother Armand Zildjian after he was not chosen to be the main CEO and successor of Avedis Zildjian.
- carlob 6y agoI recently discover that mesmerize is also named after a person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer
- rachelshu 6y agoThere seem to be two meanings of “unexpected” not being differentiated here: 1) name-derived terms like Debian, or the French ‘poubelle’ in the comments, which have become genericized to the point where most of its users don’t know the derivation 2) a more interesting subset of (1), like PageRank, or Lake Mountain in the comments, where part or all of the name itself looks like a normal word appropriate for the situation. (a related concept is nominative determinism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism)
- seaish 6y agoWe can add a third one where the name comes from a person that was likely named after a place, which is why it looks normal (Westlake, Outerbridge). And for #2, most of them are surely done knowing that there's a double meaning, but the origin has been left behind. There's probably a few names that are now more associated with the person than the original pun.
- adrianmonk 6y agoI agree with your distinction, but for a long time I wrongly believed the -ian in Debian was a suffix meaning "relating to" as in reptilian or antediluvian. I didn't have a guess what the first part meant, but I thought it might be a nonsense syllable.
- sukilot 6y agoPage is an aptonym. There's a reason it's not called BrinRank. French Fries. Crapper toilet.
- heelix 6y agoFolks may remember a game called Supreme Commander. One of the big 'experimental class' artillery is called a Mavor. Jonathan Mavor, was one of the developers.
- earthboundkid 6y agoGoldenEye had the Klobb gun, named for Ken Lobb.
- s5300 6y agoThe fact there's yet to be a modern equal to SupCom is really unfortunate. As fun as quick games are on FAF, I really enjoyed your long thousands of unit games... and the game just can't handle it.
- United857 6y agoLoop subdivision, commonly used in CG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_subdivision_surface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_subdivision_surface Actually named after its inventor Charles Loop.
- glennericksen 6y agoBluetooth, a union of different communication protocols, after King Harold Bluetooth, 10th century uniter of Danish tribes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth#Name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth#Name
- kristopolous 6y agoIt's almost an insult to his legacy. It should be named after a slow, cumbersome, finicky and controversial leader who occasionally brought things together, but only temporarily. Cromwell would suffice
- K2L8M11N2 6y ago"Pilates" recently caught me off guard.
- valiant-comma 6y agoPerhaps apropos to this thread: The closest airport to Oracle’s headquarters is San Carlos, which has the airport code SQL. The airport and code were around long before the database company, however.
- klyrs 6y ago"Killing Fields" are extremely unfortunately named after a guy named Killing, who lived and died decades before the genocide in Cambodia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_vector_field https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_vector_field
- goodcanadian 6y agoMy understanding is that mobile homes are named for Mobile, Alabama, and not for the fact that they are moveable.
- jimhefferon 6y agohttps://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mobile-home-origin/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mobile-home-origin/ What do you know?
- hannasanarion 6y agoLook again. It's in The Repository Of Lost Legends (TROLL) section.
- jimhefferon 6y agoThanks for the tip. I didn't know they did that.
- sebgr 6y agoAmerica is named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer who was pretty sure America was a separate continent - pretty random ! https://www.loc.gov/wiseguide/aug03/america.html https://www.loc.gov/wiseguide/aug03/america.html
- mamon 6y agoBolivia is named after Simon Bolivar, its first president. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_named_after_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_named_after_...
- binrec 6y agoSuitland and Beltsville, MD - suburbs of DC named after local landowners, Samuel T. Suit and Truman Belt.
- madcaptenor 6y agoAnd Beltsville is just off the Beltway.
- vincebowdren 6y agoThe health assessment Apgar Score, named for its inventor Dr Virginia Apgar, but frequently assumed to be an acronym/initialisation and spelled as APGAR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score
- jiggliemon 6y agoCurrent Day Turkey – Used to be called Constantinople, named after Constantine. Originally named Byzantium after Byzas from Megara.
- cookie_monsta 6y agoI think you might be talking about Istanbul
- madcaptenor 6y agoThe empire that ruled from Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire, is named after its founder, Osman I. (The modern country, Turkey, isn't named after its founder Ataturk, but rather the other way around.) Therefore, the "Ottoman" footstool is named after a person.
- dllthomas 6y agoPleasanton, CA From Wikipedia: "Its name came from John W. Kottinger, an Alameda County justice of the peace, who named it after his friend, Union army cavalry Major General Alfred Pleasonton. A typographical error by a recording clerk in Washington, D.C., apparently led to the current spelling."
- macintux 6y agoA list of transcription errors that changed the names of people and places would be interesting. There was a local manufacturing company in Indianapolis that seemingly couldn’t keep its own name consistent: a buggy maker founded by two brothers named Parry also used the name “Perry” at times.
- seeken 6y ago13 year old me was confused by holter monitors, which are wearable heart monitors invented by Norman J. Holter. Everyone seems to pronounce it as halter, and mine was kind of like a halter. 20 years later my Dog got one I and I saw it spelled out on a receipt..
- xipho 6y agoTangentially, biological systematists (aka Taxonomists by some) take the cake: https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html.
- baltimore 6y agoStart a new list for things unexpectedly NOT named after people. Silly example "Bilirubin"
- narag 6y agoIn my hometown there's a shop with two big signs: "Puertas Motos" and "Motos Puertas". I've always passed by too fast, by car, so I can't tell if it's some guy whose name is Puertas selling motorbikes or some guy called Motos selling doors.
- schoen 6y agoThat's awesome! Is it in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain? If so, I just looked it up and vg ybbxf yvxr gurl ner n qbbe naq jvaqbj fhccyl fgber, juvpu vf gb fnl gur frpbaq bs lbhe gjb cbffvovyvgvrf. (I don't want to spoil it for you if you're enjoying the ambiguity.)
- narag 6y agoChiclana, a little to the south. Edit: looked it up and it's a guy named Motos selling doors :-) https://www.paginasamarillas.es/f/chiclana-de-la-frontera/puertas-motos_017117219_000000001.html https://www.paginasamarillas.es/f/chiclana-de-la-frontera/pu...
- perl4ever 6y agoOn the topic of things unexpectedly not named after people... There's a big sign on a somewhat run-down looking building on a main street in my city, that says "GENTILES". Turns out it's a company that makes flooring - i.e. short for "general tiles". Also, there's a chain of restaurants in the northeastern US called "Friendly's" that was founded by people named "Blake", not "Friendly". It was originally named "Friendly" ice cream from 1935-1989, but eventually added the apostrophe-s because people insisted on calling it that. It still gives me a little Mandela-effect type dissonance because I remember when the logo didn't match what people said and now it does.
- schoen 6y agoI remember being slightly surprised when I learned that Friendly's was founded by Prestley Blake (not by someone named Friendly), but because he was an alumnus of and major donor to my high school, this fact sort of got drummed into me to the extent that I eventually considered it strange that other people didn't know who the founder was! I think also remember that name change.
- lokl 6y agoSouthern blot, but not western blot.
- robbrown451 6y agoMain St in San Franciso is less surprising when you see it is a pretty insignificant street.
- pxx 6y agoSmart & Final, the chain of warehouse food and supply stores, is named after a "J.S. Smart" and an "H.D. Final".
- minitoar 6y agoStudent’s T always seemed odd to me.
- unterbahn 6y ago:-) fun. Tnx for sharing. Bluetooth: tenth-century king Harald Bluetooth united dissonant Danish tribes into a single kingdom. (re: uniting communication protocols) I guess it's not so surprising bc why the heck is it named after a tooth (had been thinking... the shape of a Bluetooth dongle? Lol) but still, this is a pretty obscure ref.
- runxel 6y agoAlso the Bluetooth "logo" is actually just the signet of king Bluetooth.
- sandworm101 6y agoSimilar story: Kicking Horse Pass. (BC Canada) Most think it a native name, that there was some warrior or chief named "Kicking Horse" and that we should rename the pass to give it a proper pronounciation in the native language. I've seen people protest about this (1990s, pre-wikipedia) and try to locate the historical person of which there are a few with that name. The reality is that one of the guys surveying the pass was literally kicked by his horse. No translation needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kicking_Horse_Pass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kicking_Horse_Pass
- refurb 6y agoA little less exciting, but Roger's Pass (another mountain pass between BC and Alberta) was named after... Major A. B. Rogers was hired in April 1881 by the railway company to find the pass with the promise of having the pass named after him and a $5000 bonus. [1]. $5000 is worth ~$125,000 today. Not a bad reward. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Pass_(British_Columbia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Pass_(British_Columbia)
- russellbeattie 6y agoMy favorite example: Dunce. From Wikipedia: "Duns Scotus wrote treatises on theology, grammar, logic and metaphysics, which were widely influential throughout Western Europe... The followers of Duns Scotus were called the Dunses, Dunsmen, or Scotists. When in the sixteenth century the Scotists argued against Renaissance humanism, the term duns or dunce became, in the mouths of the Protestants, a term of abuse and a synonym for one incapable of scholarship." This is similar to how people call others "Einstein" when they do something stupid.
- vmatouch 6y agoCurrying after Haskell Brooks Curry
- dhosek 6y agoStill waiting for Brooks to be a term in functional programming.
- mmmmmbop 6y agoThis phenomenon exists in the German language as well. The "Schwarzschild" in Schwarzschild radius literally means "black shield", but it is in fact named after Karl Schwarzschild. On the other hand, there are terms like eigenvector/eigenvalue, which literally mean "own"-vector/"own"-value in German. When I first learned that they still have the "eigen" prefix when translated to English, I immediately assumed that they are named after some mathematician named Eigen. To my surprise, that was not the case -- for some reason, mathematicians did indeed decide to use the German word for "own" as a prefix.
- nemetroid 6y agoGoing by Wikipedia titles, English seems to be the odd one out when it comes to eigenvectors. E.g.: * Swedish: egenvektor * Spanish: vector propio/autovectore * Italian: autovettore * Finnish: ominaisvektori * Turkish: özvektör I think autovector would have been a good English term.
- dmiracle 6y agoStent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stent
- DonHopkins 6y agoI was confused by Hamming Windows and Hanning Windows. At first I though Hanning was a typo for Hamming, but no, they are both similar but slightly different things, named after different people. https://www.tek.com/blog/window-functions-spectrum-analyzers https://www.tek.com/blog/window-functions-spectrum-analyzers Hamming and Hanning These two similarly-named Hamming and Hanning (more properly referred to as Hann) window functions both have a sinusoidal shape. The difference between them is that the Hanning window touches zero at both ends, removing any discontinuity. The Hamming window stops just shy of zero, meaning that the signal will still have a slight discontinuity. https://www.tek.com/-/media/sites/default/files/u811871/hamming-t.png https://www.tek.com/-/media/sites/default/files/u811871/hamm...
- frogpelt 6y agoGerman chocolate cake is my favorite. It originated in Texas.
- rahimiali 6y agoIn electromagnetism, the Poynting vector, the directional flux of an electromagnetic wave, is named after John Henry Poynting.
- madcaptenor 6y agoIn differential geometry there's the Killing field: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_vector_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_vector_field
- tootie 6y agoAdidas was founded by Adi Dassler. His brother founded Puma and they hated each other.
- neilk 6y agoVacaville, CA - vaca is Spanish for cow, and is home to cattle ranches. Despite many people thinking that it means "cow town", it's actually named for the settler Juan Manuel Cabeza Vaca.
- narag 6y ago"Cabeza de Vaca" is a family name meaning "cow head". There was a guy in my elementary school with that name. He had a big head, for what is worth.
- shmerl 6y agoI've heard about Debian at least.
- nwallin 6y agoCakebread Cellars : named after Jack and Delores Cakebread.
- Scaevolus 6y agoMacadamia nuts are native to Australia and were named in honor of Dr John Macadam, "a Scottish-Australian chemist, medical teacher, Australian politician and cabinet minister, and honorary secretary of the Burke and Wills expedition." Scientific names are frequently eponymous, but very few common foods were discovered by Europeans after Linnaeus invented modern taxonomy. New World food names are usually derived from native words (avocado, potato, etc).
- rmccue 6y agoFrom the same last name, “tarmac” is a shortening of tarmacadam, from tar + macadam; the latter named for John Loudon McAdam. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macadam https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macadam
- mayneack 6y agoMy favorite is Legg–Calvé–Perthes disease. I had this as a child and it wasn't until filling out a medical form as an adult that I learned it was a name and not "leg calf perthes" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legg%E2%80%93Calv%C3%A9%E2%80%93Perthes_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legg%E2%80%93Calv%C3%A9%E2%80%...
- dhosek 6y agoChe Stadium, named after the Cuban guerilla, Che Stadium.
- microtherion 6y agoBay Area surplus electronics aficionados may remember halted.com, which was founded by two guys named "Hal" and "Ted".
- chrisdhoover 6y agoNow I’m sad.
- Zren 6y agoReminds me of an episode from Under the Influence (covers history through the lens of marketing). Specifically: S7E11A - Brands Are People, Too - Products Named After Inventors This week, we explore famous Products Named After Their Inventors. Some products are so cemented in our minds we forget their names once belonged to people. Shrapnel was invented by Henry Shrapnel, nachos were invented by Nachos Anaya and the leotard was invented by a Jules Leotard. We’ll even look at some inventors who wish their names had been forgotten... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/arts-culture/under-the-influence/ https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/arts-culture/under-the-inf...
- rmccue 6y agoFuchsia is named after Leonhart Fuchs, which makes it much easier to spell once you know. Tarmac is an abbreviation of tarmacadam, which is named for John Loudon McAdam. It’s also where the verb “macadamisation” comes from, which is a great word.
- evan_ 6y agoThere’s a very good running joke on the show Childrens Hospital, which is about a children’s hospital: even though it is a hospital for children, it got its name from its founder, Dr. Arthur Childrens.
- adrianmonk 6y agoIn Austin, Texas there is a high school football stadium called House Park (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Park). For many years I assumed that house meant something like venue. (In theater, there is house lighting. And restaurants serve house wine.) But it's actually named after Edward M. House, a political figure who donated the land. There's also a Slaughter Lane. This being Texas, one might guess it is a road to a slaughterhouse, but it's named after the Slaughter family who were early settlers in the region.
- chrismcb 6y agoWe have a downhill course that car clubs use for a hilk climb, called Mary Hill. Makes after Sam Hill's daughter Mary Hill.
- BerislavLopac 6y agoAnother thing for this list is the Audi car company.
- kanobo 6y agoPrice Club (what is now Costco) was founded by Sol Price
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Price Club (what is now Costco) Price Club and Costco were competitors that merged.
- jerzyt 6y agoOne of the funniest cases I know of is actually a reverse case. A French/Russian caricaturist, Emmanuel Poiré, published his work under the name Caran d'Ache, which is a french transliteration of the word карандаш which means pencil in Russian. The Swiss company Caran d'Ache "borrowed" his name six years after he died in 1909, and became on of the most renowned companies in this business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caran_d%27Ache https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caran_d%27Ache https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caran_d%27Ache_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caran_d%27Ache_(company)
- kgwxd 6y agoMySQL gives an impression like My First Sony. How many people never bothered to look at it because it sounds like a toy?
- jonjacky 6y agoThe Loyal Heights neighborhood in Seattle. According to Wikipedia, "established by businessman Harry Whitney Treat in 1906 as part of the independent city of Ballard. Named for his daughter Loyal Graef Treat ..."
- jonjacky 6y agoThe Loyal Heights neighborhood in Seattle, named after the developer's daughter, Loyal Graef Treat.
- type0 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
- relbeek2 6y agoHallmark Cards : Named after Joyce Hall
- failuser 6y agoIt's not too late to start calling Li-ion batteries Goodenough batteries.
- xg15 6y agoI'm surprised this hasn't been used yet for any shenanigans yet... Only today! Best burger with 100% organic meat patty! (* 100% sourced from the Henry Organic Memorial Ranch)
- garfieldnate 6y agoThe most surprising one to me is MySQL, which is named after Widenius's daughter, My. My is a Vietnamese name and it's pronounced like English "me", so maybe we've been pronouncing MySQL wrong this whole time!