I've driven the Outerbridge Crossing probably hundreds of times. That one is blowing my mind.
Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
11–20 of 346 posts
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#12Also Apgar score which is used to assess newborns is named after Virginia Apgar.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#13German chocolate cake, per Wikipedia, "Originating in the United States, it was named after English-American chocolate maker Samuel German".
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#14> The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine
I don't think this is one of those kinds of things, is it?
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#15tarmac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Loudon_McAdam
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#16French drains!
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#17saxophone - Adolphe Sax
sadism - the Marquis de Sade
masochism - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#18Main Street in San Francisco was named after Charles Main.
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.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#19> The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine
That 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.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#20I was surprised to learn that Cakebread Cellars is actually named for its founders, Jack and Dolores Cakebread