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Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

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Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#111

Post by jszymborski »

This 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...

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#112

Post by rob74 »

inopinatus wrote: post #88

The 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 a…

> 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%20...)

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#114

Post by GeneralMayhem »

BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #47
senectus1 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

San 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 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?

That map also showcases another example of this - Townsend Street is named after one James Townsend, who was the alcalde [1] in 1848, not for its location at the end of town. (Geary, Leavenworth, and Bryant are also named for pre-statehood alcaldes, but their names are less amusingly coincidental.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcalde

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#115

Post by mkl »

mrtransient wrote: post #84

Elbakyan 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 sna…

Those are obviously named after a person, not unexpectedly.

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#116

Post by ribs »

tamimio wrote: post #51

Algorithms: Named after Al-Khwarizmi Algebra: Named after his book, Al-jabr. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khwarizmi

That 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".”

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#120

Post by russellbeattie »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #48

You 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.)

One 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.

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