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Things Unexpectedly Named After People

notes.rolandcrosby.com

231–240 of 294 posts

Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People

#231

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...

Mercedes is a common Spanish first name meaning "mercies" and is the short version of one of the titles of the Virgin Mary. But then, a lot of Spanish names for girls are titles of the Virgin Mary.

Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People

#234
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe it would have been called Taco Smith. It happened to be that the dudes last name made sense in the context of a dinner bell being rung for tacos.

Taco smith would be an interesting restaurant, maybe using an anvil as a logo instead of a bell

The Taco Smith is going in to my next D&D game.

Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People

#235
post #138
post #69

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…

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) - Mob…

Lynyrd Skynyrd themselves should be on that list.

Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It behooves those parents to teach them the proper verb.

“Is the FBI in the habit of cleaning up after multiple murders?!!” “Of course. Why do you think it’s run by a man called Hoover?” This was a joke in the ‘80s Clue movie; albeit probably funnier to the English writer and the English actor saying the lines, as Hoover as a generecized trademark for vacuum cleaner is more popular there.

Even in the US, it's such a well-known brand that the joke still works well, despite Hoover not being so dominant as to have become the generic word for vacuum cleaner.

Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fell for a Snopes TRoLL. They made that story up. Mobile homes are called that because they can move. There was never a mobile home company called "sweet homes", and the industry does not originate in Mobile.

The ultimate troll entry for me on Snopes is: > So how did this claim arise? In a 1993 PC Professional article, columnist Lisa Holst wrote about the ubiquitous lists of “facts” that were circulating via e-mail and how readily they were accepted as truthful by gullible recipients. To demonstrate her point, Holst offered her own made-up list of equally ridiculous “facts,” among which was the statistic cited above about…

Gotta wonder about their other debunkings, which is the whole point, really: They salt their site with lies to keep you on your toes.

Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People

#240
post #21

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.

MySQL's fork, MariaBD, is also named after one os Widenius' daughters.

So is MaxDB, which is also named after his son Max

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Widenius#Personal_life

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