Eponym

Word usage

History

• One of the first recorded cases of eponymy occurred in the second millennium BC, when the Assyrians named each year after a high official.
• In ancient Greece, the eponymous archon was the highest magistrate in classical Athens. Eponymous archons served a term of one year which took the name of that particular archon. Later historians provided yet another case of eponymy by referring to the period of fifth-century Athens as The Age of Pericles after its most influential statesman Pericles.
• In Ptolemaic Egypt, the head priest of the Cult of Alexander and the Ptolemies was the eponymous priest after whom years were named.
• The Hebrew Bible explains the origins of peoples through individuals who bear their name. Jacob is renamed "Israel" and his sons name the original 12 tribes of Israel, while Edomites, Moabites and Ammonites, Canaanites and other tribes are said to be named for other primal ancestors bearing their name. In most cases, the experiences and behavior of the ancestor is meant to indicate the characteristics of the people who take their name.
• In ancient Rome, one of the two formal ways of indicating a year was to cite the two annual consuls who served in that year. For example, the year we know as 59 BC would have been described as "the consulship of Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus and Gaius Julius Caesar". Under the empire, the consuls would change as often as every two months, but only the two consuls at the beginning of the year would lend their names to that year.
• During the Christian era, itself eponymous, many royal households used eponymous dating by regnal years. The Roman Catholic Church, however, eventually used the Anno Domini dating scheme based on the birth of Christ on both the general public and royalty. The regnal year standard is still used with respect to statutes and law reports published in some parts of the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries : a statute signed into law in Canada between February 6, 1994 and February 5, 1995 would be dated 43 Elizabeth II, for instance.
• Government administrations may become referred to eponymously, such as Kennedy's Camelot and the Nixon Era.
• British monarchs have become eponymous throughout the English-speaking world for time periods, fashions, etc. Elizabethan, Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian are examples of these.

• Political trends or movements are often eponymously named after a government leader. Examples include Jacksonian democracy, Stalinism, Maoism, Obamacare, and Thatcherism.

  Other eponyms

• In intellectual property law, an eponym can refer to a generic trademark or brand name, a form of metonymy, such as aspirin, heroin and thermos in the United States.
• In geography, places and towns can also be given an eponymous name through a relationship to an important figure. Peloponnesus, for instance, was said to derive its name from the Greek hero Pelops. In historical times, new towns have often been named after their founders, discoverers, or notable individuals. Examples include Vancouver, British Columbia, named for explorer George Vancouver; and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, originally called Isbister's Settlement but renamed after Queen Victoria's husband and consort in 1866.
• In science and technology:
• * Discoveries and innovations are often named after the discoverer or a figure influential in their advance. Examples are Avogadro's number, the Diesel engine, meitnerium, Alzheimer's disease, and the Apgar score. For a different view of the process see Stigler's law of eponymy.
• * In biological nomenclature, organisms often receive scientific names that honor a person. Examples are the plant Linnaea, the baobab Adansonia, and the moth Caligula.
• In art:
• * Plays, books, and other forms of entertainment may have eponymous names, such as the ancient Greek epic The Odyssey, derived from its principal character, Odysseus, and the novel Robinson Crusoe.
• * The term is also applied to music, usually with regard to record titles, where it is prevalent and leads to confusion. For example, Bad Company's first album was entitled Bad Company and contained a popular song named "Bad Company". Parodying this, the band R.E.M. titled a 1988 compilation album Eponymous.
• In tribal antiquity, both in ancient Greece and independently among the Hebrews, tribes often took the name of a legendary leader. The eponym gave apparent meaning to the mysterious names of tribes, and sometimes, as in the Sons of Noah, provided a primitive attempt at ethnology as well, in the genealogical relationships of eponymous originators.
• In zoology, an animal name that includes the name of a person is properly called an eponym.

  Orthographic conventions

Capitalized versus lowercase

• Because proper nouns are capitalized in English, the usual default for eponyms is to capitalize the eponymous part of a term. When used as proper adjectives they are normally capitalized, for example Victorian, Shakespearean, and Kafkaesque.
• However, some eponymous adjectives and noun adjuncts are nowadays entered in many dictionaries as lowercase when they have evolved a common status, no longer deriving their meaning from the proper-noun origin. For example, Herculean when referring to Hercules himself, but often herculean when referring to the figurative, generalized extension sense; and quixotic and diesel engine . For any given term, one dictionary may enter only lowercase or only cap, whereas other dictionaries may recognize the capitalized version as a variant, either equally common as, or less common than, the first-listed styling. The Chicago Manual of Style, in its section "Words derived from proper names", gives some examples of both lowercase and capitalized stylings, including a few terms styled both ways, and says, "Authors and editors must decide for themselves, but whatever choice is made should be followed consistently throughout a work."
• When the eponym is used together with a noun, the common-noun part is not capitalized. For example, in Parkinson disease, Parkinson is capitalized, but disease is not. In addition, the adjectival form, where one exists, is usually lowercased for medical terms, and gram-negative, gram-positive although Gram stain. Uppercase Gram-positive or Gram-negative however are also commonly used in scientific journal articles and publications. In other fields, the eponym derivative is commonly capitalized, for example, Newtonian in physics, and Platonic in philosophy. The capitalization is retained after a prefix and hyphen, e.g. non-Newtonian.

Genitive versus attributive

• English can use either genitive case or attributive position to indicate the adjectival nature of the eponymous part of the term. Thus Parkinson's disease and Parkinson disease are both acceptable. Medical dictionaries have been shifting toward nonpossessive styling in recent decades. Thus Parkinson disease is more likely to be used in the latest medical literature than is Parkinson's disease.

  National varieties of English

• American and British English spelling differences may apply to eponyms. For example, British style would typically be caesarean section, which is also found in American medical publications, but cæsarean section is sometimes seen in British writing, and cesarean is preferred by American dictionaries and some American medical works.

  Comparison table of eponym orthographic styling

Lists of eponyms

• List of eponyms
• List of eponyms

• Adages
• Adjectives
• Asteroids
• Astronomical objects
• Cartoon characters
• Chemical elements
• Colleges and universities
• Companies
• Diseases
• Foods
• Human anatomical parts
• Ideologies
• Inventions
• Mathematical theorems
• Medical signs
• Medical treatments
• Minerals
• Observations
• Places and political entities
• Prizes, awards and medals
• Scientific constants
• Scientific equations
• Scientific laws
• Scientific phenomena
• Scientific units
• Sports terms
• Surgical procedures
• Tests
• Trademarks or brand names