Not 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.
Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
91–100 of 346 posts
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#92I’m not certain, but I think the bear trap is named after Frank Conibear.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#93Earlier 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.
It could (conceivably) be that "in San Francisco" is meant literally, and that in San Francisco it's true, even if not the case for other instances of "Main Street" elsewhere, however; a cursory web search leads me to think "urban legend" is by far the more likely. It's always been my understanding that "Main Street" either is currently, or was at some time nearer the town / city's beginning the main street that went…
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Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#94Kasabian (the rock band) is an Armenian surname.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#95The 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…
He was originally going to be called Indiana Smith but Spielberg didn’t like the name.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#96Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same here. I always thought it was lazy naming, like "My" + some topic. Now I respect the name.
Oh it's the Finnish girl's name, like Little My from the Moomins. That is definitely an improvement, reading it as the possessive pronoun makes it look like the name of some pushy preinstalled crapware. YourSQLExperience. EnjoyData. MyCloudStorageIDidntAskFor.
Well, there is even more to it.
First of all the name My is (Finland-)Swedish, the Finnish name of the character is Pikku Myy.
The Finnish name registry contains only ~2 mentions before the publication of the hugely popular first Moomin book (and none for Myy) so this girls' name and hence the name in the MySQL really comes from the Moomin stories.
And finally, the name of Little My is a play on the Greek small letter mu, i.e. μ, and you'd be closer to the real idea and original pronunciation if you thought of it as MuSQL (μSQL) instead ;)
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#98I also love places that are named after someone and it's slightly amusing/horrifying. Harold Holt was the Australian Prime Minister in the 1960's, and went for a swim and went missing (yes, there are many, MANY local conspiracies this :)). So what did we do? Named a swimming pool[0] after him (construction actually started before his death, I believe). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_.…
If any country would commit to humor like this in large public works, it’s Australia
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#99As a small negative case, Gagarin st. in central St. Petersburg is not called in honor of Yuri, but due to the Loon bird (Gagara), who also gave Yuri the surname, and way earlier.
So waiting for the list of things not named after people.
Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)
#100It 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: