List of eponyms
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An eponym is a person (real or fictitious) from whom something is said to take its name. The word is back-formed from "eponymous", which in turn is from the Greek word "eponymos" meaning "giving name".
Here is a list of eponyms:
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - Z
A
- Achilles, Greek mythological character – Achilles' tendon; Achilles' heel
- Adam, Biblical character – Adam's apple
- Alvin Adams (1804–1877) – Adams Express
- Len Adleman – the third letter of the name RSA, an asymmetric algorithm for public key cryptography, is taken from Adleman
- Al-Khwarizmi, Persian mathematician of the 9th century – algorithm, algorism
- Alfred V. Aho – the first letter of the name awk, a computer pattern/action language, is taken from Aho
- Matthew Algie – tea and coffee merchant company
- Alice Liddell – Alice in Wonderland, Alice in Wonderland syndrome
- Alois Alzheimer – Alzheimer's disease
- Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss – A&M Records
- André-Marie Ampère – ampere - unit of electric current, Ampère's law
- Roald Amundsen – Amundsen Sea; Amundsen crater, a crater on the Moon; Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station
- José de Anchieta - Anchieta Island, Anchieta Highway, in Brazil
- Anders Jonas Ångström – angstrom, unit of distance
- Rafael Moreno Aranzadi, nicknamed Pichichi - The Pichichi Trophy
- Archimedes – Archimedes' screw, Archimedes' principle
- William George Armstrong – Armstrong breech-loading gun
- Benedict Arnold– traitor
- Hans Asperger – Asperger's syndrome
- Robert Atkins (nutritionist) – Atkins Diet
- Atlas, a mythical King – atlas
- Aurélio Buarque de Holanda – Aurélio's Brazilian Portuguese Dictionary.
- Caesar Augustus – month August; Zaragoza (a spanish city)
- R. Stanton Avery – Avery Dennison Corporation
- Amedeo Avogadro – Avogadro's number, Avogadro's Law
B
- Joseph Jules François Félix Babinski, French neurologist – Babinski reflex or Babinski sign, common name for Plantar reflex
- Karl Baedeker – Baedeker's
- Balthazar traditional name for one of the Three Wise Men – 12 litre wine bottle (see Wine bottle nomenclature)
- Barbara, daughter of Ruth Handler, creator of Barbie – Barbie doll
- Joseph Barbera and William Hanna – Hanna-Barbera Productions
- Y. M. Barr – Epstein-Barr virus
- Jean Alexandre Barré – Guillain-Barré syndrome
- Caspar Bartholin the Younger – Bartholin's gland
- Basarab I – Bessarabia
- Karl Adolph von Basedow – Graves-Basedow disease
- Tomas Bata – founder of Bata Shoes; Bata Shoe Museum, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Batawa, Ontario; Batanagar, India
- Heinrich Beck – Beck's beer, Beck's Futures art prize
- Louis de Béchamel, a courtier to King Louis XIV – Béchamel sauce
- Henri Becquerel – becquerel, unit of radioactivity
- Hulusi Behçet, Turkish dermatologist – Behçet's disease
- Adrian Bejan – Bejan number
- Alexander Graham Bell – bel - unit of relative power level; Bell Labs, BellSouth, Bellcore, Regional Bell operating company - companies. Also gave birth to a slang term i.e. give James a bell, call James on the telephone.
- Carl Benz – Benz & Cie. (later Daimler-Benz)
- Hiram Berdan – Berdan Sharps Rifle
- David Berkowitz also known as "Son of Sam" – Son of Sam law
- Juan de Bermudez – Bermuda
- Daniel Bernoulli – Bernoulli's principle
- Sergei Natanovich Bernstein, Bernstein polynomial
- Yogi Berra, baseball player – Yogi Bear, a bear in animated cartoons
- Henry Bessemer – Bessemer converter
- Pierre Bézier, French engineer and creator of the Bézier curve
- Bieda, a Saxon landowner ("Bieda's ford" + shire) – Bedfordshire
- Laszlo Biro – Biro, (ballpoint pen)
- Otto von Bismarck, first German Chancellor – Bismarck Archipelago and Bismarck Sea near New Guinea; German battleship Bismarck as well as two ships of the Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine); Bismarck, North Dakota
- Fisher Black and Myron Scholes – Black-Scholes model of options pricing
- Amelia Bloomer (1818-1894), popularizer of modest, practical trousers for women, called "bloomers"
- Boann the Irish Goddess – The river Boyne
- Johann Elert Bode and Johann Daniel Titius – Titius-Bode Law
- Niels Bohr – Bohr magneton, Bohr radius, Bohrium, chemical element
- Lecoq de Boisbaudran – Gallium, chemical element. Although named after Gallia (Latin for France), Lecoq de Boisbaudran, the dicoverer of the metal, subtly attached an association with his name. Lecoq (rooster) in Latin is gallus.
- Simón Bolívar – Bolivia, Bolîvar department, Colombia, varous cities and tows named Bolívar en Venezuela and Colombia
- Ludwig Boltzmann – Boltzmann constant, Stefan-Boltzmann constant, Stefan-Boltzmann law
- James Bond, the ornithologist – James Bond, the fictional spy character
- Satyendra Nath Bose – bosons, Bose-Einstein statistics, Bose-Einstein condensates
- Professor Amar Bose – Bose Speakers
- Louis Antoine de Bougainville - French navigator who found the bougainvillea plant
- Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott (1832-1897) - boycott
- Robert Boyle – Boyle's Law
- Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), published an edition of Shakespeare without words or expressions unsuitable to family reading, hence bowdlerize
- Jim Bowie – Bowie knife
- Bowman's Capsule, named for Sir William Bowman, a British anatomist
- Brahmagupta – Brahmagupta's formula, Brahmagupta's identity, Brahmagupta's trapezium, Brahmagupta's problem, Brahmagupta's polynomial
- Louis Braille (1809-1852) - the braille writing system for the blind
- Robert Brown – Brownian motion
- John Browning – Browning firearms, including the Browning Automatic Rifle
- Prince Brychan – Brecknockshire
- Bucca, a Saxon landowner ("Bucca's home" + shire) – Buckinghamshire
- Professor Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899) - Bunsen burner
- General Ambrose Burnside - had distinctive whiskers which became known as sideburns
C
- John Cadbury – opened his shop in 1824 which became the company Cadbury
- Julius Caesar – month July, Caesarean section, Caesar cipher, titles Kaiser and Tsar
- John Calvin, 16th century theologian – the religious doctrine of Calvinism, Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip
- Caesar Cardini, restaurateur – Caesar salad
- Sam Carr, neighbour of David Berkowitz also known as "Son of Sam" – Son of Sam law
- Hendrik Casimir – Casimir effect
- Anders Celsius – Celsius (unit of temperature) Celsius (Moon crater)
- Ceredig, son of Cunedda – Cardigan
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar – Chandrasekhar limit, Chandra X-ray Observatory
- Jean-Martin Charcot, French neurologist – Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, Maladie de Charcot, French name for Motor Neurone Disease
- King Charles I of England – North Carolina and South Carolina
- Jacques Charles and Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac – Law of Charles and Gay-Lussac (frequently called simply Charles' Law)
- Bobby Charlton – the "Bobby Charlton" comb over hairstyle
- Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov – Cherenkov effect
- Jesus Christ, "The Saviour" – El Salvador, Christianity, Christmas
- Saint Christopher – Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Walter Chrysler – founder of Chrysler, DaimlerChrysler
- Alfred Chuang – the third letter of the company name BEA Systems, is taken from Alfred, a co-founder
- Alonzo Church – Church-Turing thesis, Church-Turing-Deutsch principle
- Cincinnatus, Roman statesman – Cincinnati, Ohio (indirectly)
- Senator Claghorn, regular character on the Fred Allen radio show – Foghorn Leghorn, Warner Bros. cartoons
- Bill Clinton- two-term president of the United States, Clintonesque, meaning less than truthful.
- Ruth Cleveland, daughter of Pres. Grover Cleveland – Baby Ruth candy bars
- Bill Coleman – the first letter of the company name BEA Systems, is taken from Bill, a co-founder
- Samuel Colt – Colt revolver
- Christopher Columbus - many places and territories, see Columbus, Colombia, Colombo, British Columbia in Canada
- Arthur Compton – Compton effect
- Captain James Cook – Cook Islands
- Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis – Coriolis effect
- Charles-Augustin de Coulomb – coulomb - unit of electric charge, Coulomb's law
- Michael Cowpland – founded the software company Corel (from Cowpland's Research Laboratory)
- Seymour Cray – Cray Research
- Cunedda – Gwynedd
- Marie and Pierre Curie – curie, unit of radioactivity, Curium, chemical element
- Pierre Curie – Curie point
- Saint Cuthbert ("church of Cuthbert") – Kirkcudbright
D
- Jacques Daguerre – Daguerreotype
- Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz – Daimler-Benz (later DaimlerChrysler)
- John Dalton – dalton, non-SI unit of atomic mass
- Charles Darwin – Darwinism, Neural Darwinism, Social Darwinism, Darwinian Happiness, Darwin's theory of evolution, Darwinian selection, Non-darwinian evolution, Darwinian medicine, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin Mounds, Charles Darwin University, Darwin College, Cambridge, Charles Darwin National Park, Adelaide-Darwin Railway, Darwin Awards, Darwin's finches, Darwin Island, Charles Darwin Research Station, Darwin Bay, Lecocarpus darwinii (a tree species) in (Galápagos Islands), Charles Darwin Foundation
- Adi Dassler – founder of adidas
- Arthur Davidson and William Harley – Harley-Davidson
- Humphry Davy – Davy lamp
- Paul de Casteljau, de Casteljau's algorithm
- Michael Dell – founder of Dell, the computer company
- David Eisenhower, grandson of US President Dwight Eisenhower – Camp David US presidential retreat
- Thomas Derrick (c. 1600), British hangman - Derrick (lifting device)
- Melvil Dewey – Dewey Decimal System
- Thomas Edmund Dewey, American politician – Dewey, one of "Huey, Dewey and Louie", animated cartoon characters
- David Deutsch – Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle
- Bo Diddley - Popularizer of the Bo Diddley beat
- Rudolf Diesel - the diesel engine
- Paul Dirac – Dirac's constant, Dirac equation, Dirac delta function, Dirac sea, Dirac Prize, Fermi-Dirac statistics
- Walt Disney – founder, The Walt Disney Company, Disneyland
- Doily family (c. 1700)
- Ray Dolby – Dolby Stereo, Dolby Surround and Dolby Pro Logic
- Donatello, Renaissance painter – Donatello, one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic characters
- Christian Doppler – Doppler radar, Doppler effect
- Charles Dow and Edward Jones – Dow Jones & Company
- Herbert Dow – The Dow Chemical Company
- Guillaume Dupuytren - Dupuytren's contracture, Dupuytren's fracture
- Dr. August Dvorak – Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
E
- Thomas Edison – Edison effect, Edison Records, Edisonian approach, Edison, Georgia, Edison, New Jersey, Edisonade
- Prince Edward, Duke of Kent (brother of George III of the United Kingdom), commander of British forces in Halifax – Prince Edward Island
- Gustave Eiffel – Eiffel Tower, designer
- Albert Einstein – Einstein refrigerator, einsteinium - chemical element, Bose-Einstein statistics, Bose-Einstein condensates
- Queen Elizabeth I of England, the "Virgin Queen" – Virginia and West Virginia
- Saint Elmo – St. Elmo's fire
- Loránd Eötvös – Eotvos, gravitational gradient
- M. A. Epstein – Epstein-Barr virus
- Lars Magnus Ericsson – Ericsson
- Leonhard Euler – Euler's formula, Eulerian path, Euler equations; see also: List of topics named after Leonhard Euler
- Bartolomeo Eustachi – Eustachian tube
- Sir George Everest – Mount Everest
- Ewale a Mbedi – Duala people, Douala (from a variant of his name, Dwala)
F
- Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686-1736) - the Fahrenheit scale
- Gabriele Falloppio – Fallopian tube
- Michael Faraday – farad - SI unit of capacitance, faraday - cgs unit of current Faraday constant, Faraday effect, Faraday's law of induction, Faraday's law of electrolysis
- Guy Fawkes – guy
- Enrico Fermi – fermions, Fermi energy, Fermi paradox, fermium - chemical element, Fermi-Dirac statistics. fermi (obsolete name for femtometre)
- Enzo Ferrari – founder, Ferrari
- George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. – Ferris wheel
- Richard Feynman – Feynman diagram
- Fib of the Picts, one of the seven sons of Cruithe – Fife
- B.C. Forbes – Forbes magazine
- Henry Ford – Ford Motor Company
- Matthias N. Forney – Forney locomotive
- Charles Fort – Forteana, Fortean Society, Fortean Times
- Benjamin Franklin – Franklin stove, franklin - cgs unit of electric charge
- William Fox – 20th Century Fox
- Sigmund Freud – Freudian slip
- Leonard Fuchs (1501-1566) - Fuchsia
G
- Johan Gadolin, Finnish chemist and geologist – gadolinite, the mineral after which the chemical element Gadolinium has been named
- Thomas Gage (botanist) – greengage
- Uziel Gal – the Uzi submachine gun
- Galileo Galilei – Galileo or gal, unit of acceleration
- Israel Galili – the Galil assault rifle
- Luigi Galvani (1737-1798), discovered the Galvanic response of muscles to electricity. The process of galvanization is also named after him.
- James Gamble and William Procter – Procter & Gamble
- Henry Laurence Gantt – Gantt chart
- John Garand – M1 Garand rifle
- Giuseppe Garibaldi – Garibaldi biscuits, Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi
- Gideon Gartner – Gartner
- Hermann Gartner – Gartner's duct
- Richard J. Gatling – Gatling gun
- Carl Friedrich Gauss – gauss - unit of magnetic induction, Gauss' law; see also: List of topics named after Carl Friedrich Gauss.
- Enola Gay Tibbets – Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb. Tibbets' son Paul Tibbets, pilot of the plane, named it after his mother.
- Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Jacques Charles – Law of Charles and Gay-Lussac
- Lou Gehrig, American Baseball player – Lou Gehrig's Disease
- Hans Geiger – Geiger counter, Geiger-Mueller tube
- King George I of Great Britain – Georgia
- Domingo Ghirardelli – Ghirardelli Chocolate Company
- Josiah Willard Gibbs – Gibbs free energy, Gibbs phenomenon
- Thomas Gilbert – Kiribati
- Gaston Glock – GLOCK
- Kurt Gödel – Gödel's incompleteness theorem, Gödel's ontological proof
- Samuel Goldwyn – Goldwyn Picture Corporation, later merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (or MGM)
- Wilbert Gore – Gore-Tex
- Ernst Gräfenberg – Gräfenberg spot (G-spot)
- Sylvester Graham – Graham crackers, Graham flour
- Thomas Graham – Graham's Law
- Robert James Graves – Graves-Basedow disease
- Louis Harold Gray – gray, unit of absorbed dose of radiation
- Vicente Guerrero – Guerrero
- Georges Guillain – Guillain-Barré syndrome
- Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814) - advocate of what came to be called the guillotine
H
- Otto Hahn – hahnium, chemical element. This element name is not accepted by IUPAC. See element naming controversy
- Edwin Hall – Hall effect
- Hugh Halligan – Halligan bar
- Laurens Hammond – Hammond Organ
- Hamo, a 6th century Saxon settler and landowner – Hampshire
- John Hancock, signatory of the US Declaration of Independence – John Hancock, a signature
- Elliot Handler and Harold "Matt" Matson – Mattel
- William Hanna and Joseph Barbera – Hanna-Barbera Productions
- Gerhard Armauer Hansen – Hansen's disease
- William Harley and Arthur Davidson – Harley-Davidson
- Douglas Hartree – Hartree energy
- Gerald Harvey and Ian Norman – Harvey Norman
- Hakaru Hashimoto – Hashimoto's thyroiditis
- Hassan-i-Sabah, leader of the murderous Hashshashin cult – assassin from hassansin (this etymology is disputed)
- Paul Hawkins - Hawk-Eye tracking system used in cricket and other sports
- Oliver Heaviside and Arthur Edwin Kennelly – Kennelly-Heaviside layer
- Joseph Henry – henry, unit of inductance
- William Henry – Henry's law
- Heinrich Rudolf Hertz – hertz, unit of frequency
- William Hewlett and David Packard – founders, Hewlett-Packard
- Edward C. Heyde – Heyde's syndrome
- Miguel Hidalgo – Hidalgo
- David Hilbert – Hilbert's program
- Eugen von Hippel – Von Hippel-Lindau disease
- Harald Hirschsprung, Danish physician – Hirschsprung's disease
- Paul von Hindenburg – after whom the Hindenburg airship was named
- Thomas Hobbes, 17th century philosopher – Hobbes from "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip
- Thomas Hobson (1544-1630), stable manager in England - Hobson's choice, an only apparently free choice that is no choice at all
- Thomas Hodgkin – Hodgkin's disease, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
- Homer, father of Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons – Homer Simpson, character in The Simpsons animated TV series
- Soichiro Honda – founder, Honda
- Mark Honeywell – founder, Honeywell
- Robin Hood, English folk hero – Robin of the Batman series
- Robert Hooke – Hooke's law
- William Henry Hoover (1849-1932) - The Hoover Company; in British English, the word "hoover" became a verb meaning "to vacuum a floor". The word "hoover" has also come to mean anything that is sucked up at a great rate ("They hoovered their way through the banquet").
- August Horch – founder of Audi (audi is Latin for horch. It means listen in English)
- James Horlick and William Horlick – founded the company Horlicks in 1873
- William Howe (1803-1852) - Howe truss bridges
- Hroc, an ancient landowner ("Hroc's fortress" + shire) – Roxburghshire
- Howard Hughes – Hughes Aircraft company, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Hughes Airwest airlines, Hughes Glomar Explorer ship
- Howard R. Hughes, Sr. – Hughes Tool Company, Baker Hughes company
I - J
- Eleuthère Irénée du Pont – DuPont
- Ivan the Terrible – Ivy the Terrible from The Beano comic
- Joseph Marie Jacquard – Jacquard loom
- Jacob – Israel
- Roy Jacuzzi - inventor of the jacuzzi whirlpool bath.
- Calamity Jane – Calamity James from The Beano comic
- Karl Jansky – jansky, unit of flux density
- Jeremiah, the Biblical prophet – jeremiad
- Jeroboam, first king of the Hebrews – jeroboam wine bottle
- Edward Jones and Charles Dow – Dow Jones & Company
- Brian David Josephson – Josephson junction, Josephson effect
- James Prescott Joule – joule, unit of energy, unit of work, unit of heat
K
- Franz Kafka – adjective Kafkaesque
- Mikhail Kalashnikov – the Avtomat Kalashnikova series of weapons, including the AK-47, the Kalashnikov Handheld Machine Gun or Ruchnoi Pulemet Kalashnikova obraztsa 1974g (RPK-74)
- Ingvar Kamprad – the first two letters of IKEA, the home furnishings retailer he founded
- Gaetano Kanizsa, Italian psychologist – Kanizsa triangle
- Moritz Kaposi, Hungarian dermatologist – Kaposi's sarcoma
- Theodore von Kármán – Karman line
- Tadao Kashio – founder of Casio
- Shozo Kawasaki – founder, Kawasaki Heavy Industries
- Lord Kelvin – kelvin, unit of thermodynamic temperature
- John F. Kennedy – John F. Kennedy International Airport, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Kennedy Center Honors, John F. Kennedy University
- Arthur Edwin Kennelly and Oliver Heaviside – Kennelly-Heaviside layer
- Brian W. Kernighan – the third letter of the name awk, a computer pattern/action language, is taken from Kernighan
- John Kerr (physicist) – Kerr effect
- Wilhelm Killing – Killing vector field
- Gustav Kirchhoff – Kirchhoff's Laws
- Donald Knuth – Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm
- Wladimir Peter Köppen – Köppen climate classification
- Gerard Kuiper – Kuiper Belt
L - Z
See List of eponyms (L-Z)An asterisk designates people who became eponyms despite their stated wishes not to.
See also
- Lists of etymologies
- List of eponymous adjectives in English
- List of eponymous laws
- List of adages named after people
- List of observations named after people
- List of people
- List of toponyms
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