
Things Unexpectedly Named After People - vortex_ape
https://notes.rolandcrosby.com/posts/unexpectedly-eponymous/
======
air7
I 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.

~~~
air7
Sadly, I can't edit the comment anymore. Here are a few more.

\- German Chocolate Cake - Named after the English-American chocolate maker
Samuel German.

\- Baker's Chocolate (popular American brand of baking chocolate) - Named
after Dr. William Baker

\- Loop subdivision (CG term) - Named after its inventor Charles Loop.

\- French Hill (neighborhood in Jerusalem) - Named after British general John
French. (Disputed)

\- Mobile Homes (my absolute favorite) - Named after their place of
fabrication, Mobile Alabama. Bonus fact (mine): The product's original name
(that sadly didn't catch on) was "Sweet Homes" after their inventor James
Sweet! And The 1974 Lynyrd Skynyrd hit “Sweet Home Alabama” was a reworking of
a 1951 radio jingle advertising “Sweet Homes, Alabama.”

~~~
divbzero
Another food item:

– Caesar salad — named after Caesar Cardini, a restauranteur in San Diego and
Tijuana [1]

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_salad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_salad)

~~~
dragonwriter
I don't think it's unexpectedly named after a person, but it may qualify as
named after an unexpected person.

~~~
madcaptenor
Nachos are also named after a person - a maitre d' named Ignacio, who needed
to come up with something to serve one night after his chef had already left).
The word "Nazi" comes from the same root, a nickname for Ignatz used to make
fun of Bavarian peasants.

------
TheRealSteel
Most 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
I 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.

~~~
tristor
Tex-Mex is from Texas... that's what the Tex part is, and it's distinct from
Cali-Mex, because while both cuisines originated from Mexican influence into
the area using local ingredients and traditional techniques, the ingredients
were different and the influences originated from different regions of Mexico
which heavily influenced the cuisine. Tex-Mex originated with the Tejanos who
resided in Texas while it was still part of Mexico and mostly originated from
Central and Northern Mexico while Cali-Mex is predominantly a result of
immigration that occurred later on mostly from Western/Coastal Mexico.

Tex-Mex and Cali-Mex aren't the same thing, and California has no claim to
Tex-Mex...

~~~
ladberg
I've never heard the term Cali-Mex, but I'd say that Taco Bell is way closer
to Tex-Mex than any other taco places in SoCal, which are generally much more
authentic.

~~~
tristor
Taco Bell isn’t Tex-Mex, it’s corporatized and white-washed fast food. You
won’t find Tex-Mex in California... that’s kind of the point.

I appreciate many different cuisines, so I am not saying Tex-Mex is better
than Cali-Mex, just that they’re different. Bringing Taco Bell into the
equation and saying it’s representative is deeply insulting to Tex-Mex,
however.

~~~
relbeek2
My favorite "Tex-Mex" is from SLC, Utah. "Ute-Mex"?

------
erdosjr
The 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...](https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1327/what-does-elo-stand-
for)

~~~
new2628
A 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
In chess there's even a difference between the "live elo rating" which is
calculated every match, and the official FIDE rating updated every month.

------
mkl
My 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
Or Čech cohomology, usually denoted with the check "v" above characters.

~~~
TomMarius
(Čech means "a Czech person")

~~~
labster
I thought so, but thanks for doubleczeching.

------
swyx
The 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
Named 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
heavy read. thanks for sharing. i'm gonna go hug my sister.

------
glennericksen
Bluetooth, 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
It'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

------
DavidVoid
Sideburns 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
Who decided to flip the words though

~~~
jld
I believe it was Thomas J Flip, in 1911.

~~~
fattire
Flip Wilson, comedian and volleyball inventor.

~~~
DonHopkins
Chip Flip, inventor of the Flip Chip.

He's also the godfather of the Big and Little Indian Brothers.

------
valiant-comma
Perhaps 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.

------
rachelshu
There 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
We 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.

------
rob74
Munich 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...

------
rusbus
Also, 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
Whenever 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
Guy Fleegman

~~~
bryanrasmussen
I like to think of him as Crewman number 6.

------
flohofwoe
Quite 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

~~~
twic
The striking name has led to confusion:
[https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/1085770107899576320?s=...](https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/1085770107899576320?s=19)

~~~
rgoulter
And an Emacs plugin. :o)
[https://github.com/rurban/rmsbolt](https://github.com/rurban/rmsbolt)

------
evgen
Silhouette, 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
Related to austerity, Melba Toast.

------
kriskrunch
German Chocolate Cake owes its name to an English-American chocolate maker
named Samuel German.

~~~
kevinmchugh
You 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
Not 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)

~~~
kgwxd
This sounds like one of those explinations for how they make Starbursts so
juicy.

~~~
fsckboy
except it was just a factual description of history, condensed, but taut and
clarifying of possible misconceptions, and nothing about recipes or flavors or
any other organileptic properties.

~~~
kgwxd
I get the impression that my comment came across as an insult. If so, that was
not my intent.

------
giomasce
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.

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.

~~~
taejo
Related 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
I 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!).

~~~
madcaptenor
"Chapel" is another example. (It descends from a word meaning "little cape".)

------
mmmmmbop
This 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
Going 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.

------
sandworm101
Similar 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
A 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_\(British_Columbia\))

------
narag
In 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.

~~~
perl4ever
On 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
I 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.

------
dolmen
In 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
This 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
I think you're reading too much into the list. What's the non-name meaning of
"Debian" supposed to be?

~~~
jhbadger
Named after a person named "Deb" (without the ian). Like the word
"Jeffersonian" meaning the philosophy attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

~~~
giomasce
No, 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.

~~~
jhbadger
No, I know that's the real origin. I'm saying how the name could be
interpreted other than deb+ian

~~~
giomasce
Ah, my bad, sorry.

------
DonHopkins
I 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/hamm...](https://www.tek.com/-/media/sites/default/files/u811871/hamming-t.png)

------
kevml
The 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
Not eponymous, but I've always thought it strange that there's no connection
between the names of Jamaica in Queens and the Carribean island.

------
neilk
Vacaville, 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
"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.

------
vincebowdren
The 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)

------
PaulAJ
What about the D C Power Building which houses the Stanford AI Lab? It was
named after Donald Clinton Power.

------
logicchains
The 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
My 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)).

------
ivoras
The 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
Thanks 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/w9bXzLbNqBFPIEnkI8H73sV5D8n...](https://external-
preview.redd.it/w9bXzLbNqBFPIEnkI8H73sV5D8nwDRpfdCeA6gwJdTQ.jpg?auto=webp&s=b63bbbb710c4215982c0458ec4bb502fdf2d3111)

[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)

------
JadeNB
There 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
That always baffled me. Never bothered to check. Thanks.

------
United857
Loop 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.

------
acwan93
The 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)

------
hn_throwaway_99
Going 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.

~~~
pfarrell
I 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
In 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.

------
tyingq
There'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
That is true of Sandwich (earl of) tho, which I find fun.

~~~
yxhuvud
Cheddar, also. Which is the reason cheeses from anywhere can be called a
cheddar as long as it is made the right way.

------
carlob
I recently discover that mesmerize is also named after a person

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer)

------
dllthomas
Pleasanton, 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
A 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.

------
llimos
French 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
> 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."

------
itsEtai
Pilates are named after Joe Pilates

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilates](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilates)

------
jld
Leatherman multitools are named after the inventor, Timothy S. Leatherman.

------
rmccue
Fuchsia 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.

~~~
askvictor
Would that be the same John Macadam that the macadamia nut is named for?

EDIT: Nope, different one. John McAdam was Scottish, while John Macadam was
Australian.

------
ezoe
PageRank 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.

~~~
cruano
Huh

>The basis of Google's search technology is called PageRank™, and assigns an
"importance" value to each page on the web and gives it a rank to determine
how useful it is. However, that's not why it's called PageRank. It's actually
named after Google co-founder Larry Page.

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20010715123343/https://www.googl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20010715123343/https://www.google.com/press/funfacts.html)

~~~
dehrmann
This, like a lot of these, feels like a happy coincidence people probably
realized at the time and couldn't say "no" to.

------
baltimore
Start a new list for things unexpectedly NOT named after people. Silly example
"Bilirubin"

------
unterbahn
:-) 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
Also the Bluetooth "logo" is actually just the signet of king Bluetooth.

------
pxx
Smart & Final, the chain of warehouse food and supply stores, is named after a
"J.S. Smart" and an "H.D. Final".

------
HanShotFirst
The leotard is named after its inventor, French acrobat Jules Léotard:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leotard](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leotard)

------
Scaevolus
Macadamia 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
From 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)

------
Cass
The 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.)

------
tootie
Adidas was founded by Adi Dassler. His brother founded Puma and they hated
each other.

------
xvedejas
Ashley 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
There 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_nam...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names)

~~~
thelibrarian
The best example of this is Torpenhow Hill in Cumbria, England. Torr, penn,
and howe all mean “hill” in different languages.

~~~
dredmorbius
There 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).

~~~
madcaptenor
And the baseball team, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (the the angels
angels of Ana's home)

------
rahimiali
In electromagnetism, the Poynting vector, the directional flux of an
electromagnetic wave, is named after John Henry Poynting.

~~~
madcaptenor
In differential geometry there's the Killing field:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_vector_field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_vector_field)

------
devenson
If 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-b...](https://www.mercedesbenzchicago.com/what-does-the-mercedes-
benz-name-mean/)

~~~
mobilefriendly
Conversely, Porsche is named for Ferdinand Porsche and not the female name.

~~~
russellbeattie
The 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_??

------
russellbeattie
My 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.

------
jerzyt
One 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_\(company\))

------
Zren
Reminds 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-
inf...](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/arts-culture/under-the-influence/)

------
seeken
13 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..

------
muglug
The “pap” in Pap smear is short for Papanikolaou

------
adrianmonk
In 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.

------
torstenvl
Noob Saibot, the Mortal Kombat character, is named after John Tobias and Ed
Boon.

------
vmatouch
Currying after Haskell Brooks Curry

~~~
dhosek
Still waiting for Brooks to be a term in functional programming.

------
nwallin
Cakebread Cellars : named after Jack and Delores Cakebread.

------
vortico
Sabian, the cymbal manufacturer
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabian)),
was named after _Sa_ lly, _Bi_ lly, and _An_ dy 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.

------
mayneack
My 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%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legg%E2%80%93Calv%C3%A9%E2%80%93Perthes_disease)

------
microtherion
Bay Area surplus electronics aficionados may remember halted.com, which was
founded by two guys named "Hal" and "Ted".

~~~
chrisdhoover
Now I’m sad.

------
kgwxd
MySQL gives an impression like My First Sony. How many people never bothered
to look at it because it sounds like a toy?

------
sebgr
America 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
Bolivia is named after Simon Bolivar, its first president.

See also
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_named_after_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_named_after_people)

------
binrec
Suitland and Beltsville, MD - suburbs of DC named after local landowners,
Samuel T. Suit and Truman Belt.

~~~
madcaptenor
And Beltsville is just off the Beltway.

------
lokl
Southern blot, but not western blot.

------
garfieldnate
The 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!

------
robbrown451
Main St in San Franciso is less surprising when you see it is a pretty
insignificant street.

------
meagher
Sort of an obvious one, but MariaDB is named after Michael Widenius’s other
child, Maria.

~~~
elvongray
MaxDB too, named after is son Max

~~~
dwighttk
I think Max might count, but Maria would be weird if it wasn't named after
someone...

------
xipho
Tangentially, biological systematists (aka Taxonomists by some) take the cake:
[https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html](https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html).

------
jonjacky
The 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
The Loyal Heights neighborhood in Seattle, named after the developer's
daughter, Loyal Graef Treat.

------
zdw
Many 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"

------
evan_
There’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.

------
logicallee
Along 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.

------
heelix
Folks 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.

~~~
s5300
The 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.

------
type0
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine)

after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin

------
xg15
I'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)

------
dmiracle
Stent
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stent](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stent)

------
K2L8M11N2
"Pilates" recently caught me off guard.

------
jiggliemon
Current Day Turkey – Used to be called Constantinople, named after
Constantine. Originally named Byzantium after Byzas from Megara.

~~~
cookie_monsta
I think you might be talking about Istanbul

------
chrismcb
We have a downhill course that car clubs use for a hilk climb, called Mary
Hill. Makes after Sam Hill's daughter Mary Hill.

------
goodcanadian
My understanding is that mobile homes are named for Mobile, Alabama, and not
for the fact that they are moveable.

~~~
jimhefferon
[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mobile-home-
origin/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mobile-home-origin/) What do you
know?

~~~
hannasanarion
Look again. It's in The Repository Of Lost Legends (TROLL) section.

~~~
jimhefferon
Thanks for the tip. I didn't know they did that.

------
minitoar
Student’s T always seemed odd to me.

------
failuser
It's not too late to start calling Li-ion batteries Goodenough batteries.

------
sukilot
Page is an aptonym. There's a reason it's not called BrinRank.

French Fries.

Crapper toilet.

~~~
holman
The “crapper” is actually _not_ named after my 5x great uncle Thomas Crapper;
“crap” has been around for ages as slang. Interesting nonetheless, though!

------
klyrs
"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)

------
frogpelt
German chocolate cake is my favorite. It originated in Texas.

------
dhosek
Che Stadium, named after the Cuban guerilla, Che Stadium.

------
kanobo
Price Club (what is now Costco) was founded by Sol Price

~~~
dragonwriter
> Price Club (what is now Costco)

Price Club and Costco were competitors that merged.

------
BerislavLopac
Another thing for this list is the Audi car company.

------
relbeek2
Hallmark Cards : Named after Joyce Hall

------
shmerl
I've heard about Debian at least.

------
thedogeye
Don’t forget “Crap” named after Thomas Crapper

~~~
dragonwriter
Thomas 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.

------
fulmicoton
Bridgestone.

~~~
TMWNN
Yes. 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
The 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
Can 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-
doe...](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/299414/where-does-
describing-something-as-the-gold-standard-come-from)

3:
[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?corpus=15&smoothing=3&...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?corpus=15&smoothing=3&content=gold+standard&year_start=1700)

4: From 1767
[https://www.google.com/books/edition/An_Inquiry_Into_the_Pri...](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)

5: From 1764
[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ames_Library_Pamphlet_C...](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ames_Library_Pamphlet_Collection/RCyDs_QL5i8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=gold%20standard)

~~~
Alex3917
[https://books.google.com/books?id=wk-
OxcTKyi4C&pg=PA105&lpg=...](https://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://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3714297/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3714297/)

~~~
tofof
Both 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".

