German chocolate cake, per Wikipedia, "Originating in the United States, it was named after English-American chocolate maker Samuel German".
Funnily enough I know this desert by its translated name to Hungarian as "Német csokoládé torta".
Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
221–230 of 346 posts
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#222https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/legg-calve-pe... Leg calve perthes disease is named after doctors legg and calve. It presented (for me) as pain in my calf, and I spelled it wrong for 5 years.
Lol, and you're still going...
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#223The 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 story continues in the Netherlands, where a company licensed the Keller and Knappich design to produce their own trucks. Of course, they released it under their own names: Klinkenberg & Koster, abbreviated as KLIKO, which they too stamped in large font on their trucks and bins. And today "kliko" is the common Dutch name for the wheelie bin.
I guess only in those parts of the country where Kliko had a large market share at some point. The Otto brand name is so strong in the east that they have no idea what a Kliko is.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#224> The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine
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Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#225[deleted]
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#226A few German companies: - Aldi (supermarket chain), founded by the Albrecht brothers, thus AL brecht DI skont - Adidas, founded by AD olf DAS sler - Mercedes-Benz, named by Emil Jellinek-Mercedes after his daughter Mercedes, initially with Daimler which then merged with Benz - Audi, founded by August Horch. Initially founded as _A. Horch & Cie. Motorwagenwerke Zwickau_, he later lost the rights to the name "Horch". H…
It seems like these are different than the ones in the website. These are not really "unexpected" in the way that "PageRank", which is an algorithm for ranking pages, turns out not to be names after the pages it ranks, but the Page that invented it.
The examples in your post are just the source of these names, which may be unknown to many, but are not unexpected.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#227The 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…
Continuing the trash theme, "Dumpster" comes from the Dempster family name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dempster_Brothers
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#228Guillotine: Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
Rastafari: Haile Selassie (born Lij Tafari Makonnen)
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#229Linux (Linus Torvalds)
(don't know if that's unexpected, though)
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s generally the result of them starting as personal or family businesses, so initially your brand is your name. Then the business grows so large the relationship inverts. It does not have much to do with germany really, it’s common the world over. For example, just from US car brand, you obviously have Ford, but also Olds (Ransom E.), Chevrolet (Louis and Arthur), Buick (David), Chrystler (Walter), Dodge (Horace E…
It's not the lack of English-proofing, it's the connotations that this name has for Germans: "Sepp" is a very common and not really glamourous first name/nickname, and "frickeln" means tinkering or fiddling around with something (usually with the negative sense of tinkering rather than fixing it properly).
How long has it been like this though? The meaning of words change surprisingly quickly, but not as quickly as their second-order connotations.