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Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

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Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#331

Post by mikhailfranco »

resolutebat wrote: post #118

Saudi Arabia: the Arabia of the Saud family. Also the only* country unambiguously named after its rulers. * There are a few borderline cases like Liechtenstein and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan though.

How about a country named after the ruler of another country:

  Philippines - King Philip II of Castille
A country named after a city in another country:

  Venezuela - Little Venice
A capital city named after the leader of another country:

  Monrovia, Liberia - after US President Monroe
A country named after it's discoverer from another country:

  USA - Italian Amerigo Vespucci
A country named after its liberator from another country:

  Bolivia - Venezuelan Simon Bolivar
A country named after another country:

  Indonesia - *Indian Islands*
An American state named after a fictional muslim ruler:

  California - from an old Spanish romance novel 
               about a fictional *Queen Calafia,* 
               derived from *Khalif(a)*
The fortunate and unexpected discovery that serendipity is named after a country:

  Serendip - old Arabic/Persian name for Ceylon, Sri Lanka

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#332

Post by mikhailfranco »

kqr wrote: post #305
ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #104

At the opposite end of things, here's Stigler's law of eponymy[0]. This "law" states that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. It was discovered by Robert K. Merton. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy

Is this a little like how all famous Germans are Austrian, and all famous French are Belgian?

The two most famous Belgians are fictitious:

  Hercule Poirot, Tintin
Unless you are a cyclist, then the most famous Belgian is:

  Eddie Merckx
Excluding the unmentionable infamous King Leopold II, of course.

But Belgium has only existed since 1839, so it has a limited run.

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#334

Post by mikhailfranco »

resolutebat wrote: post #118

Saudi Arabia: the Arabia of the Saud family. Also the only* country unambiguously named after its rulers. * There are a few borderline cases like Liechtenstein and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan though.

Hashemite is really just an adjective for the current foreign dynasty, which is from the Hejaz on the Red Sea coast of what is now Saudi Arabia. They were defeated there by the Saudis (1924-5).

The British gave the elderly Sharif exile in Cyprus, and put his sons on the thrones of Jordan (Abdullah), and Syria-then-Iraq (Faisal). These events are shown briefly at the end of Lawrence of Arabia, with Alec Guinness playing Faisal.

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#335

Post by amadeuspagel »

rob74 wrote: post #154
msiemens wrote: post #127

A 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…

I sometimes feel that German founders are too stuck on naming their company after themself, some of them really should have looked for alternatives, e.g. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppelfricke

Many do. The founders of Lidl bought the name from someone named Lidl. They were named Schwarz.

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#337

Post by amadeuspagel »

schoen wrote: post #100
hinkley wrote: post #33

It took me too long to find out that Larry named PageRank after himself and not after ranking web pages. And I was horrified when I learned that lynching is named after someone, and a perpetrator at that.

Whereas boycott is named after the target of one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott

Interesting, because it highlights that from the beginning boycotts were morally fraught, and even the first (?) boycott involved violence against non-participants.

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#339

Post by amadeuspagel »

graemep wrote: post #292

One that is widely know but people never seem to think about is "America". Named after the sort of person we would probably not name anything after nowadays, and, ironically, doing so would be most outrageous in the places named after him.

Vespucci also coined the term "New World", so one word for this place is the guy's name and the other was invented by the guy.

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#340

Post by singleshot_ »

nisse72 wrote: post #326
singleshot_ wrote: post #312

Canada geese are named after John Canada, which I didn’t expect.

I was surprised by this too! I tried (briefly) to find a source, but it seems to be an urban legend: https://www.answers.com/Q/How_did_Canada_geese_get_their_nam...

Holy cow, you’re right. My apologies for everyone I’ve ever needled with this factoid after they called one a Canadian Goose.
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