Fun With Words

It’s common practice to honor a person by naming a street/institution after her, but highly uncommon to have a word named after an individual. Eponym is a name/noun formed after a person. For instance, the Elizabethan age pertains to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Elizabethan is an eponym.

In the modern world, many political trends were christened after politician who set them. For example, Stalinism and Thatcherism. Many places towns, cities or countries are eponymously named. For example, Vancouver is named after explorer George Vancouver.

Medical jargon boats many eponyms with several diseases/viruses named after the site where they were discovered. These are known as geographic eponyms in medicine. Some examples:Bombay Blood Group,Jaipur Foot and Rocky Mountain spotted Fever. Plaster of Paris was named after the French capital when medicos there began using plaster to mend broken bones.

Numerous verbs have also been derieved from historical figures with their names linked with their ideas/innovations .the word boycott,chauvinist,quislingand sandwich originate from personal names.

Not surprisingly, famous people are eponyms for their innovative apparel. Cardigan is eponymous with the Earl of Cardigan and raglan is derived from Lord Raglan who saw action in the Crimean War.

Unsurprisingly literature has inspired eponyms. It’s common to find eponymous terms in literary criticism such as Dickensenian for melodramatic poetry and eccentric characters, and Proustian for personal memories.Similarly, mythology has spawned many an eponym such as someone having the Midas touch, an Achilies’ heel and being Herculean or a Venus.

Scientist are often honored for their innovations through linking their names with products-Rudolf Diese, Alessandro Volta and James Watt, or to process or Calculus. Likewise, botanist has plants named after them, such as magnolia and poinsettia.

Alzheimer’s disesase is named after its discoverer. Dr Alois Alzheimer, a German physician , who presented the case history of a 51 year old woman who suffered froma rare brain disorder. Avogadro’s number is named after early 19th century Indian scientist Amedeo Avagadro, who in 1811, first proposed that the volume of gas is proportional to number of atoms and molecules irrespective of the nature of a gas.

It is common to have companies named after their founders. For Instance when we refer to the eponymous founder of Ford Motor Company, we mean Henry Ford.

Words are formed in many ways. Eponyms help us remember important people in history who have contributed to shaping the human condition.