Does "Git" count? ;-)
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git#Naming)
Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
201–210 of 346 posts
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#202The "Sharpe Ratio" was named after William F. Sharpe, who developed it in 1966.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#203Not quite the same, but the city of Washington, DC is named after George Washington, whose family hails from the town of Washington in northeast England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_Tyne_and_Wear
Cincinnati, Ohio is also named after George Washington, albeit indirectly.
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2022/09/06/who-was-cin...
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#204The generic Hungarian word for trash cans, 'kuka', unexpectedly originates from the names of German industrialists Johann Josef Keller and Jakob Knappich. The story is quite involved, to the extent that one would be tempted to dismiss it as a folk etymology, if it wasn't ridiculously well-attested. Keller and Knappich founded an acetylene factory in Augsburg, Bavaria in 1898. They named it Keller und Knappich Augsbur…
The most common word in Japanese for “stapler” is hochikisu or hotchikisu, which seems to come from the name of the E.F. Hotchkiss Company [1], an American manufacturer whose staplers were imported to Japan in the early 20th century. Some Japanese sources [2] say that the word comes from Benjamin Hotchkiss [3], an inventor of machine guns, and that is what I learned many years ago, but that etymology apparently has not been documented [4].
[1] https://connecticutmills.org/find/details/e.h.-hotchkiss-co
[2] https://gally.net/temp/20240222hotchikisugogensetsu.jpg
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_B._Hotchkiss
[4] https://wis.max-ltd.co.jp/about/company/trivia/h_story/inven...
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#205Kasabian (the rock band) is an Armenian surname.
But more than that, they are named after Linda Kasabian, a member of the Manson family who testified against Charles Manson in court.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#206I think one of the most unexpected words in English to be named for a person is "guy"! From Guy Fawkes. The word went from meaning an effigy of Fawkes, to any doll, to a person.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#207Charlemagne: word for 'king' in many European countries derive from his name (german 'Karl', polish 'Krol', Lithuanian, ...)
Similarly, the words for "emperor" in some languages -- most famously the Russian "tzar" and German "Kaiser" -- come from Caesar.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#208Not quite the same, but the city of Washington, DC is named after George Washington, whose family hails from the town of Washington in northeast England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_Tyne_and_Wear
I didn't know that George was Geordie.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#209I exclaimed out loud when I read about MySQL. I never liked the name before, and now I do.
I wonder what is proper pronunciation.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#210I thought the Pap Test was an acronym (PAP) but it's actually named after the physician that invented it, Papanicolaou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap_test
The test is known as papanicolau in my country, but so many people think it's named after one of the ancient popes called Nikolaus ("papa Nicolau")...