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Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
- medler 3y agoThere used to be TV commercials for a piece of fitness equipment called the Ab Doer. It was supposedly created by John Abdo. I’m still not sure but as far as I can tell he was a real guy and that was his real name.
- ConnorBoyd 3y agoI was surprised to learn that Cakebread Cellars is actually named for its founders, Jack and Dolores Cakebread
- ekianjo 3y agoSnowflake was very surprising!
- russdill 3y agoPeople that are not familiar with AZ weather patterns probably don't quite get the same sense of surprise.
- block_dagger 3y agoI exclaimed out loud when I read about MySQL. I never liked the name before, and now I do.
- Crespyl 3y agoAnd MariaDB is named after her sister.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y agoAnd MaxDb is named after her brother
- signalToNose 3y agoNow I’m curious about MongoDb
- ivolimmen 3y ago... and they have an OnlyFans?
- wiradikusuma 3y agoSame here. I always thought it was lazy naming, like "My" + some topic. Now I respect the name.
- card_zero 3y agoOh it's the Finnish girl's name, like Little My from the Moomins. That is definitely an improvement, reading it as the possessive pronoun makes it look like the name of some pushy preinstalled crapware. YourSQLExperience. EnjoyData. MyCloudStorageIDidntAskFor.
- anttihaapala 3y agoWell, there is even more to it. First of all the name My is (Finland-)Swedish, the Finnish name of the character is Pikku Myy. The Finnish name registry contains only ~2 mentions before the publication of the hugely popular first Moomin book (and none for Myy) so this girls' name and hence the name in the MySQL really comes from the Moomin stories. And finally, the name of Little My is a play on the Greek small letter mu, i.e. μ, and you'd be closer to the real idea and original pronunciation if you thought of it as MuSQL (μSQL) instead ;)
- aitchnyu 3y agoOne guy named Lucene (db behind Elasticsearch) after wife's middle name and Hadoop after his kid's elephant toy.
- timeon 3y agoI wonder what is proper pronunciation.
- mrbait 3y agoIt seems to be Swedish in origin, in which case the closest English equivalent would be "mee" or "mew". Roughly speaking, the <y> here is close to what is traditionally transcribed in English as [i:], except rounded, i.e. [y:]. Many caveats apply, this probably being Finnish Swedish (which should have the same or a similar vowel), my Swedish being rather rudimentary, etc.
- jiveturkey 3y agogasoline -> john cassel?
- tareqak 3y agoFollowing the link for Gasoline took me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Etymology > The term gasoline originated from the trademark terms Cazeline and Gazeline, which were stylized spellings and pronunciations of Cassell, the surname of British businessman John Cassell, who, on 27 November 1862, placed the following fuel-oil advertisement in The Times of London: > > The Patent Cazeline Oil, safe, economical, and brilliant [...] possesses all the requisites which have so long been desired as a means of powerful artificial light.[12] > That 19th-century advert is the earliest occurrence of Cassell's trademark word, Cazelline, to identify automobile fuel. In the course of business, he learned that the Dublin shopkeeper Samuel Boyd was selling a counterfeit version of the fuel cazeline, and, in writing, Cassell asked Boyd to cease and desist selling fuel using his trademark. Boyd did not reply, and Cassell changed the spelling of the trademark name of his fuel cazelline by changing the initial letter C to the letter G, thus coining the word gazeline.[13] By 1863, North American English usage had re-spelled the word gazeline into the word gasolene, by 1864, the gasoline spelling was the common usage. In place of the word gasoline, most Commonwealth countries (except Canada), use the term "petrol", and North Americans more often use "gas" in common parlance, hence the prevalence of the usage "gas bar" or "gas station" in Canada and the United States.[14]
- tareqak 3y ago> The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine
- ribs 3y agoI don't think this is one of those kinds of things, is it?
- mistercow 3y agoThat seems pretty expected. If you’d asked me to guess where the word diesel came from, I probably would have guessed a name. Compare that to German chocolate cake, which seems preposterous.
- phinnaeus 3y agoGerman's Chocolate Cake is probably a better name for it. I knew something as up with that one the first time I met a german person and they had never heard of my favorite cake. Baker's chocolate was a surprise to me though, I've always made my German's Chocolate Cake with Baker's chocolate...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dudeinjapan 3y agoVin Diesel, named after the engine, was originally Mark Sinclair. Which is actually not a bad name.
- gumby 3y agoHenry Gantt and the Gantt chart
- bongodongobob 3y agoAs opposed to? What is a gantt if not someone's name?
- cortesoft 3y ago"Seymour Waterfall" seems like a good like philosophy
- xwowsersx 3y agoI've driven the Outerbridge Crossing probably hundreds of times. That one is blowing my mind.
- TMWNN 3y agoContext for non-New Yorkers: Outerbridge is the southernmost bridge in NYC and New York State, and Staten Island might as well be on Mars for the rest of the city. So the name "Outerbridge" is all the more fitting (and surprising).
- andy800 3y agoThe George Washington Bridge and Outerbridge Crossing both connect New York City (on the east) with New Jersey (on the west) but are about 45 minutes apart, even with no traffic.
- bobbyi 3y agoThe other NYC bridges are all (I think?) named Bridge, but they went with Crossing here because Outerbridge Bridge sounds weird. Another NYC one: A lot of people think "major" in The Major Deegan Expressway means it is a significant expressway, but actually the expressway is named after (Army) Major William Deegan
- andy800 3y agoMaybe I'm weird but I think NYC area has numerous semi-poetic sounding roads (while most of the country just uses route numbers): Harlem River Drive, Cross Bronx, Major Deegan, Van Wyck, Belt Parkway, Grand Central Parkway, the Taconic, Palisades Parkway, the B.Q.E., the Sprain Brook. Plus the Verrazano and Tappan Zee.
- dustincoates 3y agoHouston does the same with its highways, and, in fact, they have different names depending on their relation to downtown. For example, I-45 is both the Gulf Freeway and North Freeway, 59 is both Eastex and Southwest. Austin also has named highways (Mopac, Capital of Texas, Research), except I-35, which I was once told was because "it was the only one not created locally."
- jbandela1 3y agoAlso Apgar score which is used to assess newborns is named after Virginia Apgar. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score
- cjohnson318 3y agoGerman chocolate cake, per Wikipedia, "Originating in the United States, it was named after English-American chocolate maker Samuel German".
- haunter 3y agotarmac < tar + macadam < macadam < John Loudon McAdam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Loudon_McAdam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Loudon_McAdam
- uiberto 3y agoAnd macadamia nuts are named after a different John Macadam (beyond similar names, nothing indicates a close blood relationship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Macadam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Macadam
- singleshot_ 3y agoParenthetically, there is no tarmac at any airport because the rock chips would get blown around and wreck the planes and jet engines.
- bavent 3y agoFrench drains!
- ribs 3y agoOh crap that’s a really good example
- pradn 3y agosaxophone - Adolphe Sax sadism - the Marquis de Sade masochism - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
- russdill 3y agoI don't think you're getting the idea.
- thih9 3y agoWhat is the idea? How are these different from e.g. erlang, elo or shrapnel - all featured on the page?
- quickthrower2 3y agoIt ain’t! Don’t worry these are good!
- mkl 3y ago"Unexpectedly named after people". Erlang seems to be short for for Ericsson Language, Elo is often misspelled ELO as if it stands for something. Shrapnel is less unexpected.
- MiddleEndian 3y agoI swear I correct people about Elo vs ELO two to three times a year. And yes I am a great party guest!
- thih9 3y agoSaxophone is just as unexpected, other -phone musical terms, like vibraphone, idiophone, membranophone, come with a prefix unrelated to people. Sadism and masochism - perhaps less unexpected, but no less than shrapnel IMO.
- defrost 3y agoSantorum literally screams eponymous neologism.
- porphyra 3y agoMain Street in San Francisco was named after Charles Main. https://mountainviewpeople.blogspot.com/2007/09/charles-main-1817-1906.html https://mountainviewpeople.blogspot.com/2007/09/charles-main... Here are some more interesting ones... * Mason jar was named after John Landis Mason, 19th century American tinsmith * Guppy (fish) was named after Robert John Lechmere Guppy, 19th century British naturalist * Silhouette was named after Étienne de Silhouette, 18th century French politican * Bloomers (women's clothing) was named after Amelia Bloomer, 19th century American women's right advocate * T&T Supermarket (Canadian supermarket chain) was named after Tina and Tiffany, daughters of the founder, Cindy Lee * Bluetooth was named after Harald Bluetooth, 10th century king of Denmark Things NOT named after people: * "Aberration" has nothing to do with Ernst Abbe, optics scientist who wrote about chromatic aberrations. It comes from the Latin root.
- senectus1 3y ago>Main Street in San Francisco was named after Charles Main. I feel this might be a bit of a cheeky urban legend, or at the very least a coincidence. "Main st" has been used in western city's and towns for a lot longer than SF has been around.
- BurritoAlPastor 3y agoSan Francisco’s “Main Street” is in no way a major artery, however. Market Street served that function. Here’s an 1853 map https://rumsey.geogarage.com/maps/g3463000.html https://rumsey.geogarage.com/maps/g3463000.html in which today’s Main Street is only a block long. The map calls it Front St, although there’s another Front St nearby which kept the name – perhaps it was renamed Main to disambiguate once the streets connected?
- iraqmtpizza 3y agoI worked on Main for years and nobody mentioned this urban legend. while the street is not long, I would not put it past bureaucrats to name a random street Main
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- Waterluvian 3y agoShrapnel just sounds right. It’s a word with all kinds of jagged flat pieces of metal.
- Someone 3y ago“mesmerize” also sounds quite right and qualifies for this list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer)
- mikhailfranco 3y agoonomatopoeia - a word that does not sound like it means a word that sounds like what it means.
- monitron 3y agoBorders Books (for anyone who remembers it) was named after founders Tom and Louis Borders. Louis went on to found Webvan (for anyone who remembers that).
- ribs 3y agoYes, things are often named after people. That alone does not make it unexpected and notable here. -self-appointed policeman of this thing
- monitron 3y agoThe thing that made it unexpected in my case is that “borders” is an English word and was not previously known to me as a name. I was surprised and amused when I learned it was an eponym. That puts it in the same category as the other examples on this site, at least from my perspective. Am I being detained, Mr. Policeman?
- juped 3y ago"this thing" is things unexpectedly named after people. "Borders" is an English word not in very popular use as a name; "Borders Books and Music" sounds more like it's of a piece with something like "Encore Books" than, as it turns out actually to be, with "Barnes & Noble Booksellers". So it's unexpectedly named after people.
- samatman 3y agoThis one had never occurred to me, being from Ann Arbor, I went to school with one of their daughters. Everyone in town knew that it was a surname. But now that you mention it, this fact is not at all obvious from the name.
- throwaway81523 3y agoProton - William Prout (partly)
- elchief 3y agoI assumed Lake Worth, Florida was a cheesy reference to the local wealth but it's named after Mr. Worth
- elchief 3y agoCaesar salad after a Mexican chef not the emperor
- hinkley 3y agoSo I should be pronouncing it Sayzar Salad?
- shoo 3y agosays who?
- actionfromafar 3y agoKeyser Söse.
- hinkley 3y agoIt took me too long to find out that Larry named PageRank after himself and not after ranking web pages. And I was horrified when I learned that lynching is named after someone, and a perpetrator at that.
- schoen 3y agoWhereas boycott is named after the target of one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott
- amadeuspagel 3y agoInteresting, because it highlights that from the beginning boycotts were morally fraught, and even the first (?) boycott involved violence against non-participants.
- hinkley 3y agoHaving mentioned boycotts, I'm fairly sure I learned both on the same day. Did we both read the same hackernews link a few years ago?
- bananaflag 3y agoAs a teen, I thought the "Coriolis" in "Coriolis force" was a Latin word meaning something like "rotating", I was shocked when I found out it's a person's name.
- BXlnt2EachOther 3y ago[edit, clearing since I guess this is too far afield, sorry, though it was interesting.]
- russdill 3y agoThe main point is the list are things named after people who's etymology is utterly unexpected and surprising. It's like if the Rocky mountains were named after William Rocky.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pasharayan 3y agoThe teddy bear was named after Theodore Roosevelt (The president of the USA), after saving a baby bear during a hunting expedition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_bear)
- rob74 3y ago"Saving" makes it sound like the bear survived, which is not what actually happened: > A suite of Roosevelt's attendants, led by Holt Collier, cornered, clubbed, and tied an American black bear to a willow tree after a long exhausting chase with hounds. They called Roosevelt to the site and suggested that he shoot it [...] Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear himself, deeming this unsportsmanlike, but instructed that the bear be killed to put it out of its misery
- thejosh 3y agoI also love places that are named after someone and it's slightly amusing/horrifying. Harold Holt was the Australian Prime Minister in the 1960's, and went for a swim and went missing (yes, there are many, MANY local conspiracies this :)). So what did we do? Named a swimming pool[0] after him (construction actually started before his death, I believe). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_Centre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_...
- blt 3y agoIf any country would commit to humor like this in large public works, it’s Australia
- defrost 3y ago... and the cold war era submarine communications base: Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Harold_E._Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Ha... It is generally agreed that Holt's disappearance was a simple case of an accidental drowning, but a number of conspiracy theories surfaced, most famously the suggestion that he was a spy from the People's Republic of China and had been collected by a Chinese submarine. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt
- dysoco 3y agoI thought the Pap Test was an acronym (PAP) but it's actually named after the physician that invented it, Papanicolaou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap_test
- aaronbrethorst 3y agoOne of my favorites is that the creator of Pilates was a guy named Joe Pilates. It’s like if the inventor of yoga was named Vivek Yoga (which is not the case, to be clear.)
- CGamesPlay 3y agoAlthough Bikram Yoga is named after this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikram_Choudhury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikram_Choudhury
- aaronbrethorst 3y agoIt would've been so on brand for Bikram to change his last name to "Yoga." I'm honestly disappointed he didn't.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- netsharc 3y agoI think I was an adult when I heard the term Pilates.. why would it be intriguing, if his name were Brethorst people would be saying "Let's do you Brethorst exercises!"
- aaronbrethorst 3y agoWords are weird
- bandrami 3y agoWhereas the founder of the male dance review Chippendales was named Suman (pronounced "Show-man") Bannerjee
- bandrami 3y agoWhile we're at it, both of the S'es in "Einstein-Bose" should be pronounced "sh", so the particle class should be pronounced "Boshons".
- JKCalhoun 3y agoYou might think Morgan Hill, California was named because of a prominent feature of the landscape. Nope, named after a guy named Morgan Hill. (And the hill you see in Morgan Hill, CA is actually named El Toro — the Spanish word for "lawnmower". Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here for one more night.)
- russellbeattie 3y agoOne might think that Menlo Park, California was founded after the one made famous by Edison in New Jersey, but amazingly it's the other way around. Via Wikipedia: In 1876, Thomas Edison set up his home and research laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, at the time an unsuccessful real estate development named after the town of Menlo Park, California.
- YesThatTom2 3y agoYears later, part of Menlo Park, NJ was renamed “Edison, NJ” in honor of Thomas Edison. Ofc, California didn’t adopt a similar change.
- jll29 3y agoEdison also had a winter home in Orlando, Florida. And Orlando was NOT founded by George Boole, despite containing both substrings "or" and "and" (but not "not").
- Rygian 3y agoWhat is the relationship between the word "toro" (bull in Spanish) and lawnmowers?
- unwind 3y agoThis site [1] claims to be a Spanish dictionary and it doesn't agree, it claims the word is "la cortadora de césped". I guess it's possible that the word has become a generic trademark [2] like Kleenex, since of course (?) Toro [3] is a brand of lawnmowers and other equipment. Edit: switching Toro's site to Spanish [4] shows that they at least use the term consistent with [1], which seems to add credibility. :) [1]: https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/lawnmower https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/lawnmower [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark [3]: https://www.toro.com/en https://www.toro.com/en [4]: https://www.toro.com/es-es/homeowner/walk-behind-mowers https://www.toro.com/es-es/homeowner/walk-behind-mowers
- dboreham 3y agoThe crapper
- ribs 3y agoThe canonical example of this phenomenon, IMHO
- tamimio 3y agoAlgorithms: Named after Al-Khwarizmi Algebra: Named after his book, Al-jabr. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khwarizmi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khwarizmi
- ribs 3y agoThat first one sounds so much like a folky, jokey etymology, and yet, it’s true… Given the existence of “logarithms”, it’s doubly surprising…hey, why are they called that? Wikipedia says “Napier coined the term for logarithm in Middle Latin, "logarithmus," derived from the Greek, literally meaning, "ratio-number," from logos "proportion, ratio, word" + arithmos "number".”
- larsrc 3y agoI'm not going to argue against Knuth on that.
- madcaptenor 3y agoNo, algorithms are named after Al Gore.
- nocoiner 3y agoThe color “fuchsia” is named after a guy named Fuchs.
- Staple_Diet 3y ago*The Raven
- jameshart 3y agoI think technically it's named after the flower, which is named after the guy. Worth noting also that the flower was only discovered and named after him after Leonhart Fuchs had already been dead for 130 years; the color was apparently only named another 160 years after that when someone invented a dye, decided it was the color of fuchsia flowers, and called it fuchsine. And then France won the Battle of Magenta and they renamed the commercial dye made from it 'magenta' in its honor, making TWO surprisingly recent invented color names for the price of one.
- sparky_z 3y agoMore specifically, the color is named after the plant, which is named after the guy.
- raldi 3y agoBoysenberry
- quickthrower2 3y agoThe name “Sienna” is named after a color called “Siena” * * (Also a city and type of rock)
- dws 3y agoSedona, Arizona. Named for Sedona Schenbly, of Goren, Missouri. She and her husband had moved to Arizona for their health. He wanted to open a Post Office, but the Post Office authorities didn't favor his suggestion of naming it "Schenblyville Station." Thankfully, he chose to name it after his wife.
- ribs 3y agoNot surprising, not a good example of this phenomenon. -self-elected policeman of it
- jameshart 3y agoOne that surprised me recently: Coriolis force. I think I'd always assumed it was some latin-derived term to do with curling or curving, but no: named for Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis.
- riffraff 3y agoI learned this in school when we finally had a teacher who read it with the french accent rather then the Italian/latin one (stress on last I rather then second O). Mispronunciation of words I've only read has been the bane of my life.
- lloeki 3y ago> stress on last I rather then second O Although one can stress a word in a sentence (prosodic stress) e.g for emphasis (contrast stress) there's no such thing as stressed syllables (tonic accent) in spoken french. That's mostly why we native french people have a hard time speaking languages where stressed syllables matter and produces different phonemes for identically written syllables: the typical frenglish output is very monotonic and uniform. Combine that with the lack of back-of-throat Rs and tip-of-the-tongue TH which don't occur in french and you get your archetypal frenglish. And it's tough to learn because not only we're ill equipped by practice to produce those (proprioception and muscle strength) we also have a hard time hearing them as well, so we map those to french R and Z. Conversely for someone whose native language is accented it's hard to understand that french completely lacks these, so the only way to think of how written-french syllables sound when read is that every syllable is accented, uniformly so.
- saithound 3y agoThe generic Hungarian word for trash cans, 'kuka', unexpectedly originates from the names of German industrialists Johann Josef Keller and Jakob Knappich. The story is quite involved, to the extent that one would be tempted to dismiss it as a folk etymology, if it wasn't ridiculously well-attested. Keller and Knappich founded an acetylene factory in Augsburg, Bavaria in 1898. They named it Keller und Knappich Augsburg (KUKA). Their venture quickly expanded into manufacturing of welding equipment, household appliances, and eventually car parts and heavy industrial robots. In the 1920s, they manufactured hoppers for Hungarian municipal garbage trucks, which they stamped prominently with their logo. This led to refuse trucks being known colloquially referred to as "kukás auto" (lit. "car with KUKA written on it"), even long after KUKA stopped manufacturing those hoppers. And the noun kuka, referring to trash cans, arose as a backformation from there! And this is how two German industrialist gave their names to Hungarian trash cans. Of course, it probably helped that a word kuka existed in the Hungarian language already at that point (as an unrelated adjective referring to a mute person), much like snowflake existed before Snow and Flake founded the town.
- miki123211 3y agoThis happened in Poland with long-haul trucks, which we often call tiry (plural of tir), with TIR being an abbreviation for "Transports Internationaux Routiers"[1], an international treaty covering the transport of goods by road. Vehicles using the provisions of this treaty must have a plate with TIR written on it, and so the world entered popular usage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIR_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIR_Convention
- yau8edq12i 3y agoFunny enough, the French word for a garbage can is also named after someone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Poubelle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Poubelle the prefect who made the use of garbage containers mandatory in Paris.
- Kwpolska 3y agoContinuing with the trend, the Polish word for outhouse is sławojka, named after Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski, a prime minister who is responsible for making them mandatory in the countryside in the 1920s, and apparently touring the country to check how sanitary they are. https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%82awojka https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%82awojka
- aidenn0 3y agoSee also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam...
- mayneack 3y agohttps://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/legg-calve-perthes-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20374343 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/legg-calve-pe... Leg calve perthes disease is named after doctors legg and calve. It presented (for me) as pain in my calf, and I spelled it wrong for 5 years.
- cookie_monsta 3y agoLol, and you're still going...
- mayneack 3y agoThanks, mobile autocorrect
- cozzyd 3y agoPoynting vector is another one. Also Heaviside function.
- gpderetta 3y agoalso the Arrow's paradox
- yen223 3y agoLie groups in maths are named after some dude named Lie. Probably not a surprise to anyone who knows how it's supposed to be pronounced.
- rob74 3y agoThis reminds me of two (that I'm aware of, there may be more) street names in Munich that appear to be named after places but are actually named after people named after places: Passauerstraße (named after the leader of a peasant uprising rather than the city Passau) and Dessauerstraße (named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_I,_Prince_of_Anhalt-Dessau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_I,_Prince_of_Anhalt-De... rather than the city Dessau) - the only clue being that streets named after places, e.g. Aachener Straße, are written with a space in the name (or rather should be, but lots of people already get this rule wrong), while streets named after people are written as one word or with dashes. Needless to say, the likelihood of these street names being spelled wrong is even higher, including in a very prominent (and expensive to fix) place: an illuminated street sign in a tunnel https://www.merkur.de/lokales/muenchen/sendling-westpark-ort43336/heckenstallertunnel-muenchen-schild-passauer-strasse-aerger-zr-5980885.html https://www.merkur.de/lokales/muenchen/sendling-westpark-ort... - it's hard to see in the photo, but the letters are made of individual LEDs, so correcting the mistake would basically require building a new sign.
- mmmmmbop 3y agoAlso Gärtnerplatz, named after the famed architect Friedrich von Gärtner. Fun fact: The Gärtnerplatz is located on the street Klenzestraße, which is named after the other famous architect and von Gärtner's rival, Leo von Klenze.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- buildsjets 3y agoOrcas Island, Washington. Not named after Orca whales. Named after Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, the Viceroy of New Spain who sent an exploration expedition under Francisco de Eliza to the Pacific Northwest in 1791.
- Zu_ 3y agoThe Haribo candies are named after their founder and the location (HAns RIegel + BOnn) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haribo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haribo
- amadeuspagel 3y agoIs the Müsliriegel also named after him?
- mrtransient 3y agoElbakyan has several biological species named in her honor: - Idiogramma elbakyanae, a species of parasitoid wasps discovered by Russian and Mexican entomologists in 2017. - Brachyplatystoma elbakyani [es], an extinct species of catfish discovered by Argentine paleontologists in 2020. - Amphisbaena elbakyanae, a species of worm lizard discovered in 2021.[58] - Sibogasyrinx elbakyanae [c; d], a species of deep-sea snail discovered by researchers from Russia and France in 2021 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Elbakyan#Recognition_and_awards https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Elbakyan#Recogniti...
- mkl 3y agoThose are obviously named after a person, not unexpectedly.
- hoc 3y agoSleeping much better now with that relaxing clarification for brown noise... What a great list.
- erehweb 3y agoFrench toast - named for Joseph French
- telesilla 3y agoIndeed, because the French call it 'pain perdu / lost bread', as in something you do with bread you can't otherwise eat fresh anymore.
- inopinatus 3y agoThe Mackintosh is named after Charles Macintosh, inventor of the modern waterproof raincoat. The Macintosh is named indirectly after John McIntosh, a Canadian farmer and apple breeder of Scottish descent, who gave his name to the McIntosh Red cultivar. The Mackintosh building of the Glasgow School of Art is named after Charles Rennie Mackintosh, born McIntosh. 5061 McIntosh is named after Bruce McIntosh, a Canadian astronomer. Indiana Jones was named after George Lucas's dog
- raldi 3y agoHe was originally going to be called Indiana Smith but Spielberg didn’t like the name.
- rob74 3y ago> Indiana Jones was named after George Lucas's dog Acually he's also named after a dog "in-universe": SALLAH: Please... What does it always mean, this... this "Junior?" HENRY: That's his name. Henry Jones, Junior. INDY: I like Indiana. HENRY: We named the dog Indiana. BRODY: May we go home now, please? SALLAH (to Indy): The dog!? (laughs) You are named after the dog... INDY (embarrassed): I've got a lot of fond memories of that dog. (https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Indiana%20Jones%20And%20The%20Last%20Crusade.txt https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Indiana%20Jones%20And%20...)
- Centigonal 3y agoNot quite the same, but the city of Washington, DC is named after George Washington, whose family hails from the town of Washington in northeast England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_Tyne_and_Wear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_Tyne_and_Wear
- bdowling 3y agoCincinnati, Ohio is also named after George Washington, albeit indirectly. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2022/09/06/who-was-cincinnatus-was-he-namesake-cincinnati/65686117007/# https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2022/09/06/who-was-cin...
- timeon 3y agoI didn't know that George was Geordie.
- madcaptenor 3y agoBut Georgetown, part of Washington, isn’t named for him - it predates his rise. It’s named either for King George II or for its founders, two guys named George. I guess George was a very common name back then.
- samatman 3y agoGeorge was such a common name that we have a state of Georgia. Which isn't named after the country Georgia, or George III whom George Washington rebelled against, but rather George II, his grandfather.
- madcaptenor 3y agoI live in Georgia and this did not occur to me.
- DitheringIdiot 3y agoI’m not certain, but I think the bear trap is named after Frank Conibear.
- castalian 3y agoKasabian (the rock band) is an Armenian surname.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- alberto_balsam 3y agoBut more than that, they are named after Linda Kasabian, a member of the Manson family who testified against Charles Manson in court.
- thriftwy 3y agoAs a small negative case, Gagarin st. in central St. Petersburg is not called in honor of Yuri, but due to the Loon bird (Gagara), who also gave Yuri the surname, and way earlier. So waiting for the list of things not named after people.
- grokkedit 3y agoAbout southern blot there is more: it's a method used to find a specific DNA sequence in a DNA sample, and was named after its creator. When a similar method was invented that applies to RNA, was of course named Southern. When the one for proteins was invented, was named Western.
- jszymborski 3y ago> When a similar method was invented that applies to RNA, was of course named Southern. I think you meant Northern :) Also, there are Eastern blots for PTMs
- ahmedfromtunis 3y agoAt the opposite end of things, here's Stigler's law of eponymy[0]. This "law" states that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. It was discovered by Robert K. Merton. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy
- riffraff 3y agoThank you for this, it made me genuinely chuckle
- kqr 3y agoIs this a little like how all famous Germans are Austrian, and all famous French are Belgian?
- mikhailfranco 3y agoThe two most famous Belgians are fictitious: Hercule Poirot, Tintin Unless you are a cyclist, then the most famous Belgian is: Eddie Merckx Excluding the unmentionable infamous King Leopold II, of course. But Belgium has only existed since 1839, so it has a limited run.
- LVB 3y agoAdidas, from founder Adolph "Adi" Dassler
- cycomanic 3y agoIt gets better, his brother Rudolf (whom he had a previous company with) also formed a shoe company after their falling out. It was originally named Ruda, but later renamed to Puma.
- corysama 3y ago> Smart & Final (Jim Smart, Hildane Final) Thank you. The “and Final” part always seemed rather dark for a brand name…
- jszymborski 3y agoThis one is a bit too niche but I love it: In Quebec, there is a tax one pays to your municipality upon the purchase of a house called the "Taxe de Bienvenue". This translates to "Welcome Tax", which it commonly is called by anglos. Many clever folks might overhear you call it that and say "Welll actuuallyy it is named after a minister by the name of Jean Bienvenue, and so that translation is incorrect". Well, it turns out that's actually incorrect, and was mistakenly repeated by a local newspaper. A case of "things unexpectedly not unexpectedly named after a person". https://www.journaldequebec.com/2017/12/15/lex-ministre-jean-bienvenue-na-rien-a-voir-avec-la-taxe-de-bienvenue https://www.journaldequebec.com/2017/12/15/lex-ministre-jean...
- rob74 3y agoWell yeah, I guess the perverse naming (having to pay a tax isn't really likely to make you feel welcome) led people to look for alternative explanations...
- jszymborski 3y agoHaha yah, it's always felt sardonic.
- derefr 3y agoBut is it perverse naming? It seems functional to me. It's (a flowery way of) describing the thing you're paying for through the tax: the costs associated with onboarding you into the municipal government systems associated with home-owner record keeping — i.e. the costs of "welcoming" you. Ticketmaster has "convenience fees" — if you don't pay them, you don't get "convenience." Well, if you don't pay the "welcome" tax, then you won't get "welcomed" (i.e. made able to live there.) (I guess maybe it's intuitive to me because I see municipalities as private corporations like any other, that have ultimate authority on whether people get to live on their incorporated land. By default, you're not "welcome" to own land in a city! The city has to decide that!)
- ggm 3y agoStudents T test
- raldi 3y agoI guess everyone knows that the Bell System was named after some phone guy, so maybe it's more of an aptonym, but seems worth including on the list for completeness.
- madcaptenor 3y agoLess-known: he really liked tacos.
- resolutebat 3y agoSaudi Arabia: the Arabia of the Saud family. Also the only* country unambiguously named after its rulers. * There are a few borderline cases like Liechtenstein and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan though.
- samatman 3y agoLiechtenstein isn't a borderline case at all, the country is unambiguously named after the House of Liechtenstein.
- mikhailfranco 3y agoHow about a country named after the ruler of another country: Philippines - King Philip II of Castille A country named after a city in another country: Venezuela - Little Venice A capital city named after the leader of another country: Monrovia, Liberia - after US President Monroe A country named after it's discoverer from another country: USA - Italian Amerigo Vespucci A country named after its liberator from another country: Bolivia - Venezuelan Simon Bolivar A country named after another country: Indonesia - *Indian Islands* An American state named after a fictional muslim ruler: California - from an old Spanish romance novel about a fictional *Queen Calafia,* derived from *Khalif(a)* The fortunate and unexpected discovery that serendipity is named after a country: Serendip - old Arabic/Persian name for Ceylon, Sri Lanka
- mikhailfranco 3y agoHashemite is really just an adjective for the current foreign dynasty, which is from the Hejaz on the Red Sea coast of what is now Saudi Arabia. They were defeated there by the Saudis (1924-5). The British gave the elderly Sharif exile in Cyprus, and put his sons on the thrones of Jordan (Abdullah), and Syria-then-Iraq (Faisal). These events are shown briefly at the end of Lawrence of Arabia, with Alec Guinness playing Faisal.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- msiemens 3y agoA few German companies: - Aldi (supermarket chain), founded by the Albrecht brothers, thus ALbrecht DIskont - Adidas, founded by ADolf DASsler - Mercedes-Benz, named by Emil Jellinek-Mercedes after his daughter Mercedes, initially with Daimler which then merged with Benz - Audi, founded by August Horch. Initially founded as _A. Horch & Cie. Motorwagenwerke Zwickau_, he later lost the rights to the name "Horch". He named his new company "Audi", which is a translation of his name into Latin: in German, "horch" is the imperative for "horchen" (to listen), which maps to "audi" as the imperative for "audire" in Latin And then there are a just a ton of companies named after their founders (Porsche, Bosch, Siemens, …) but I'm not sure if these count :)
- pronik 3y agoYou can certainly argue that Adolf's diminutive has been used for Adidas: ADI DASsler.
- djaychela 3y agoI believe that's the case, it also settled any arguments over pronunciation - it's not A-dee-das as I used to think!
- rob74 3y agoI sometimes feel that German founders are too stuck on naming their company after themself, some of them really should have looked for alternatives, e.g. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppelfricke https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppelfricke
- dewey 3y agoI don't see the connection to German founders there, as many small / medium sized businesses like the one you linked are called after their founders everywhere (plumbers, printers, electricians,...)
- masklinn 3y agoIt’s generally the result of them starting as personal or family businesses, so initially your brand is your name. Then the business grows so large the relationship inverts. It does not have much to do with germany really, it’s common the world over. For example, just from US car brand, you obviously have Ford, but also Olds (Ransom E.), Chevrolet (Louis and Arthur), Buick (David), Chrystler (Walter), Dodge (Horace Elgin and John Francis), … And I can’t fault a German industrialist from 1910 for not English-proofing his business.
- aquafox 3y agoHaribo is named after it's founder and location: HAns RIegel, BOnn.
- samstave 3y agoThe names of Airport Codes is truly interesting as well. Basically early airports were farms and fields, and thus the airport code reflected the original famrland owners' name. There isa book on the history of names of all places in California, and similarly, the names of places are who was effectively the earliest documented land owner of that area, or something from the native tribes.
- samstave 3y agoAnyway.. this article starts its history later than what I was refering to... https://www.cntraveler.com/story/how-airports-get-their-codes https://www.cntraveler.com/story/how-airports-get-their-code...
- adontz 3y agoAlso https://wiki.debian.org/WhyTheName https://wiki.debian.org/WhyTheName
- raldi 3y agoNachos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Anaya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Anaya
- ak39 3y agoAnd here I thought Snowflake was for the data model!
- JaggedJax 3y agoThere is a park near me named Alice Keck Park. It is named after Alice Keck Park.
- almog 3y agoRitalin. Leandro Panizzon first synthesized it and named it after his wife, Rita, who used it to treat low blood pressure.
- bandrami 3y agoI don't know who that Faubourg guy was but they really loved naming parts of Paris after him
- croes 3y agoAfter you read the site, the title becomes wrong.
- Dylan16807 3y agoI think you use the word "unexpected" differently than I do.
- macintux 3y agoThere's a local engineering firm, Alt & Witzig, and I've always been curious what role, if any, the German translation of their names played in them deciding to start the company.
- legitster 3y agoFord Charcoal was made from recycled Model T scrap lumber and sold in Ford dealerships. It was bought out in the 50s and renamed to Kingsford Charcoal after the name of the town where the plant was located (the town named after Henry Ford's cousin who helped supply the lumber to Henry Ford). (Another fun fact, the charcoal process was developed by none other than Thomas Edison)
- throwaway2037 3y agoLast part: Woah, I was surprised! > Thomas Edison designed the briquette factory Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsford_(charcoal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsford_(charcoal)
- jodrellblank 3y ago> The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Ballads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Ballads
- dmurray 3y agoAnd similarly, the Children's Python is a snake that's considered suitable as a pet, named after John George Children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_python https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_python
- jodrellblank 3y agoThe Gardenia flower is named after Akexander Garden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Garden_(naturalist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Garden_(naturalist)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dario_od 3y agoThe main junction in Rome is called GRA, or Grande Raccordo Anulare (great ring junction). The name actually comes from Eugenio Gra, one of its main designers
- DerCommodore 3y agoCrazy list
- thayne 3y agoSnow Canyon was named after Lorenzo and Erastus Snow. Incidentally, Erastus Snow is also one of the namesakes of Snowflake Arizona, which is on this list.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoJeff Flake is from Snowflake, and his great-great-grandfather was the other founder of the town.
- msrenee 3y agoOne of my favorites. The nearby Virgin River was also possibly named after a Thomas Virgin rather than any wild or unmodified qualities of the river.
- DeathArrow 3y agoPascal programming language is named after Blaise Pascal. I think places shouldn't be on the list since there are tens of thousands of places named after people.
- zilti 3y agoThat is not unexpected though, quite the opposite.
- ak_111 3y agoCharlemagne: word for 'king' in many European countries derive from his name (german 'Karl', polish 'Krol', Lithuanian, ...)
- BerislavLopac 3y agoSimilarly, the words for "emperor" in some languages -- most famously the Russian "tzar" and German "Kaiser" -- come from Caesar.
- actionfromafar 3y agoAnd Charlemagne just means "grand man". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/karilaz https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...
- zilti 3y agoThe German word for king is König, not Karl
- skrebbel 3y agoTerrible nitpick on a delightful list: I disagree that Unilever deserves to be in the list. It’s the merger of Lever Brothers and Boterunie and the combo is a typical corporate word soup. Might as well add PriceWaterhouseCooper otherwise.
- schainks 3y agoI think this cheeky habit of biologists also deserves a mention: naming newly discovered organisms after friends or foes, depending on how they feel about those people at the time. Here is the first of four separate wikipedia pages dedicated to those names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisms_named_after_famous_people_(born_before_1800) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisms_named_after_...
- barnabyjones 3y agoPanettone, "Tony's bread." Or at least that's what my Italian acct. prof. insisted. Interestingly the Italian wiki entry is a lot longer than the English one and references this apparent urban legend.
- lynguist 3y ago> From Milanese Lombard panaton, an augmentative of pan (“bread”). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/panettone https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/panettone More on the subject: > Italian has several augmentatives: -one, -ona, found also in several English loanwords from Italian, often via French: minestrone (< minestra 'soup'); provolone cheese (< provola 'a kind of cheese'); cartone (< carta 'paper') appears in English carton and cartoon; balloon (this may have been formed in Italian, though the usual form is pallone, or in French)); milione 'million' (< mille 'thousand'); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmentative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmentative
- salmonellaeater 3y agoAngel Falls, the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall, is named after Jimmie Angel, a U.S. aviator, who was the first person to fly over the falls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Falls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Falls
- schoen 3y agoWe might find some more good ones in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponyms_(A%E2%80%93K)#A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponyms_(A%E2%80%93K)#... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponyms_(L%E2%80%93Z)#L https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponyms_(L%E2%80%93Z)#...
- asystole 3y agoMy favourite is the verb mesmerize, which is named after physician Franz Mesmer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer
- PennRobotics 3y agoTantalizing: something you really want but probably cannot get. ...named after Tantalus, the son of Zeus who was condemned to stand in water under a fruit tree, but the fruit and water were always just out of reach. He had a daughter, Niobe, and son, Pelops. Tantalum, the material, was named because it could not be easily dissolved in any acid, unlike most other metals. Despite knowing of the element's existence, researchers could not isolate the chemical in tantalite samples for decades, as it was always bound to this other material---later called niobium, although one guy thought there were two or more other metals and wanted to call the other one pelopium. Nope; all niobium! Sadly, tantalum became something of a semi-professional metal outside of capacitors, and even there ceramics and aluminums are preferred for one reason or another---usually cost. It was good for bulb filaments until tungsten displaced it. It was great for fountain pen nibs but not as great as iridium and osmium. It doesn't help with alloying because it embrittles. Other biologically inert materials are usually chosen over tantalum for implants. It could be a refractory ceramic but tantalum carbide is not as heat resistant as hafnium carbide. It also has weird nuclear properties, where someone will probably look back in a the distant future and remark, "damn, that awesome commercial application of nuclear tantalum evaded us for centuries! What a fitting name!" I never connected until just now that I should probably avoid breathing in any of the magic smoke when a tantalum capacitor explodes.
- dang 3y agoDiscussed at the time: Things Unexpectedly Named After People - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23888725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23888725 - July 2020 (289 comments)
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoDidn't think this needed 2020 because it contains an updated addition for 2024 (possibly based on contributions from HN). A different/weird one.
- dang 3y agoPosts that were written in $Year1 but got updated in $Year2 are a perennial edge case that can break either way. The article itself still says 2020 so I guess we go with that for now.
- lb1lf 3y agoIKEA - an acronym for Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd (With I.K. being the name of the founder, Elmtaryd being the place he grew up and Agunnaryd being the closest village.)
- oersted 3y agoFrom Warhammer 40K (I am sure it was done retroactively for the joke). Land Raiders and Land Speeders are named after Arkhan Land :) https://youtu.be/LhspXkE8wVQ?feature=shared https://youtu.be/LhspXkE8wVQ?feature=shared
- mbork_pl 3y agoHere's an interesting example: in the Whoniverse there is this concept of a "deadlock seal", which is kind of a lock which is almost impossible to break (it is (in)famously resistant even to sonic devices, which is a big deal). Apparently, it was named after an Arthur Deadlock (https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Deadlock_seal https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Deadlock_seal). I can only assume this is a deliberate joke of the authors, of course.
- BerislavLopac 3y agoA few more examples: King Street in Hammersmith, London, was named after John King, Bishop of London in 17th century. [0] Neanderthals were named after Joachim Neumann, a 17th century clergyman and composer who Latinised his surname to Neander (both literally meaning "new man"). He particularly loved a certain valley near Düsseldorf, so much in fact that it was renamed "Neandert(h)al" after him. [1] Sideburns, a once popular style of male facial hair, was named after the Union general Ambrose Burnside. [2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_King_(bishop_of_London) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_King_(bishop_of_London) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neandertal_(valley) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neandertal_(valley) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Burnside https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Burnside
- carlob 3y ago> Latinised probably Greekicized
- BerislavLopac 3y agoExcellent point! In fact it's both - "neo" from Latin and "ander" from Greek. And I stand corrected on another point: it was actually his grandfather who changed the name, so our Joachim actually was born Neander.
- wlonkly 3y agoSurely Neanderthals were named after Neandertal where they were first discovered, but Neandertal itself was named after Mr. Neander?
- procrastinatus 3y agoBridgestone - Shojiro Ishibashi (Ishibashi is spelled with the characters “stone” and “bridge”)
- bdowling 3y agoBridgestone, the Japanese tire manufacturer, is named after its founder, Shojiro Ishibashi. His surname means “stone bridge”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgestone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgestone
- junar 3y agoFirestone is from Harvey S. Firestone though. Interesting that two companies with similar names had different origins, yet one would acquire the other many years later. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_Tire_and_Rubber_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_Tire_and_Rubber_Co...
- mbork_pl 3y agoDoes "Git" count? ;-) (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git#Naming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git#Naming)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nicota 3y agoThe "Sharpe Ratio" was named after William F. Sharpe, who developed it in 1966. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_ratio
- dudeinjapan 3y agoHe also invented the Sharpie marker, after other traders kept erasing his fibonacci plots on the whiteboard
- Sniffnoy 3y agoI think one of the most unexpected words in English to be named for a person is "guy"! From Guy Fawkes. The word went from meaning an effigy of Fawkes, to any doll, to a person.
- shahar2k 3y agoI'm very surprised to see this so late in the thread
- inglor_cz 3y agoAn interesting Czech entry would be "karma". It sounds like the ancient Indian word for fate/consequences, but it is a synonym for normal household gas heater, and the etymology is KarMa = Karel Macháček, name of the engineer whose corporation produced them in former Czechoslovakia. This guy (Czech only): https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Mach%C3%A1%C4%8Dek_(konstrukt%C3%A9r) https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Mach%C3%A1%C4%8Dek_(kons...
- SeanLuke 3y agoAlexandria, VA (upscale historic suburb of DC, near Mt. Vernon). Captain Phillip Alexander II, a random guy who happened to own the land. Not named after the city in Egypt.
- mikhailfranco 3y ago... which was named after the Macedonian dude.
- saagarjha 3y agoOh, here's one: UC Irvine is named after the Irvine family, who named the university. The city was then named afterwards after because it didn't even exist at the time.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- HuangYuSan 3y agoGuillotine: Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin Rastafari: Haile Selassie (born Lij Tafari Makonnen)
- mseepgood 3y agoLinux (Linus Torvalds) (don't know if that's unexpected, though)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jll29 3y agoThe famous British one is Sandwich => Earl of Sandwich. The online Britannica has an entry on things surprisingly named after people: https://www.britannica.com/story/9-things-you-didnt-know-were-named-after-people https://www.britannica.com/story/9-things-you-didnt-know-wer...
- betimsl 3y agoI don't see Kafka in this list.
- tunnuz 3y agoMy favorite is always been Salmonella.
- kitd 3y agoUK supermarket Waitrose is named after its founders, Mr Wait and Mr Rose.
- larsrc 3y agoHoover: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hoover_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hoover_Company
- larsrc 3y agoMy bad, not actually surprising. The word Hoover came from the name, didn't exist before.
- kmarc 3y agoMy favorite is, although mentioned on the list without the Hungarian accented characters, is the ELO system (chess). Named after Árpád Élő, "Elo" is not an abbreviation but his last name, and means "living" in Hungarian.
- aqme28 3y agoIt's not actually the "ELO" system. People just think it's an acronym mistakenly and capitalize it. It's supposed to be written as just "Elo."
- kmarc 3y agoExactly my point. I would also enforce the accents, haha. Especially because when I was younger, I always thought it is "élő" (living, persisting, current), as in: it's the current up-to-date valuation of someone's rank
- xg15 3y agoIncidentally, Y Combinator is also named in honour of Charles Y, the little-known second cousin (once removed) of famous ML researcher Andrew Ng. May we never forget him.
- hynek 3y agoThe burpee exercise is named after the US physiologist Royal Huddleston Burpee Sr. I know y’all want to fact-check this – I sure did when I heard it the first time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burpee_(exercise) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burpee_(exercise)
- Waterluvian 3y agoGiven last names were often historically based on someone’s profession, Baker’s Chocolate seems like it’s both.
- ChocMontePy 3y agoA mentor is named after Mentor, who watched over Telemachus, Odysseus's son.
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoJust about every person/god in Greek mythology has something named after them though: Arachnids, Atlas, Nike, Hermes, Apollo, Uranus
- rssoconnor 3y agoFor me, the Heaviside step function was unexpectedly named after someone, rather that denoting a function with all the "weight" on one side.
- dudeinjapan 3y agoA few glaring omissions: - Spacely Sprockets (Cosmo Spacely) - Cogswell Cogs (W.C. Cogswell)
- graemep 3y agoOne that is widely know but people never seem to think about is "America". Named after the sort of person we would probably not name anything after nowadays, and, ironically, doing so would be most outrageous in the places named after him.
- amadeuspagel 3y agoVespucci also coined the term "New World", so one word for this place is the guy's name and the other was invented by the guy.
- ykvch 3y agoNicotine after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Nicot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Nicot
- evanjrowley 3y ago"There are only two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-1 errors."
- derefr 3y ago> Price Club (Sol Price) I wonder how much this was a "thing unexpectedly named after a person" vs. a case of nominative determinism. If my last name were Price, I tell you, from the moment I understood the potential implications, I'd be vaguely considering becoming an entrepreneur and starting a business focused on low prices in some way or another — just so I could make the pun.
- jonjacky 3y agoThe Loyal Heights neighborhood in Seattle is named after the developer's daughter, Loyal Graef Treat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyal_Heights,_Seattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyal_Heights,_Seattle
- userabchn 3y agoCurrying (of functions) named after Haskell Curry[1], after whom Haskell is also named. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_Curry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_Curry
- singleshot_ 3y agoCanada geese are named after John Canada, which I didn’t expect.
- nisse72 3y agoI was surprised by this too! I tried (briefly) to find a source, but it seems to be an urban legend: https://www.answers.com/Q/How_did_Canada_geese_get_their_name https://www.answers.com/Q/How_did_Canada_geese_get_their_nam...
- singleshot_ 3y agoHoly cow, you’re right. My apologies for everyone I’ve ever needled with this factoid after they called one a Canadian Goose.
- prewett 3y agoThomas Crapper sold an improved toilet with his name marked on them, which were popular in England. US soldiers stationed there started referring to toilets as "the crapper", possibly because in the US "crap" still meant "refuse", a specific sort of which was ingested by the crapper. [1] The toilet is also called the "john" because John Harrington invented the first flushing toilet in Britain. [2] In British usage, "to hoover" means "to vacuum [e.g. a carpet]" or "to suck up as if by a vacuum cleaner" (e.g. "tech companies hoover up as much user data as they can"). Murray Spangler, a janitor, invented a vacuum cleaner to avoid aggravating his asthma while cleaning. W. H. Hoover bought his patent and founded the Hoover company, which sold the devices which hoovered the dirt. [3] [1] https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/05/why-the-toilet-is-commonly-known-as-the-crapper/ https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/05/why-the-toi... [2] https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/08/why-the-toilet-is-sometimes-called-a-john/ https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/08/why-the-toi... [3] https://hoover.com/pages/about-hoover https://hoover.com/pages/about-hoover
- Clamchop 3y agoGardenias are not so named for being beautiful in a garden.
- PeterZaitsev 3y agoAt some point Monty also said he had /my/ directory on his dev system which when had /sql/ for where what later became MySQL was developed. It is quite possibly it is both... we often can name things first and when come up with fitting storie later. MaxDB, MaxScale, MariaDB, Maria (storage engine) though were all named for children... to continue the pattern.
- amadeuspagel 3y agoThe word "crass" comes from "Marcus Licinius Crassus", a roman general and politician[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus
- alimw 3y agohttps://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeavisideStepFunction.html https://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeavisideStepFunction.html
- I_complete_me 3y agomausoleum - "magnificent tomb," early 15c., from Latin mausoleum, from Greek Mausoleion, name of the massive marble tomb adorned with sculpture built 353 B.C.E. at Halicarnassus (Greek city in Asia Minor) for Mausolos, Persian satrap who made himself king of Caria.
- cc101 3y agoThey forgot about Sir Thomas Crapper.
- zuminator 3y agoThat's not a real thing! Crap's a very old world, and according to Wikipedia "crapper" was first attested in a roughly modern sense when Sir Crapper was only about 10, well before his overflowing flush to prominence in the plumbing world.