Interesting background, but I'd say the fact that Galileo is a rare name helped a lot. If history had produced 10 other well-known people named Galileo then we

Interesting background, but I'd say the fact that Galileo is a rare name helped a lot. If history had produced 10 other well-known people named Galileo then we probably would have started calling him by either his last name or his first and his last name. It also depends on context: "Steve" in a "current Apple" context is obvious, but not in a "historic Apple" or "MS vs Apple" context.