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If a person founds a company and names it after themselves, is the company really their namesake? Michael Dell and Dell, Inc., for example, is not something I'd call a namesake. Specifically I'd look at something named in honor of someone *by someone else*, for example the teddy bear. The bear was an actual bear involved in a bear hunting party attended by Teddy Roosevelt, but the name was chosen in honor of him by someone unrelated. Another example would be Alice blue, named to honor Alice Roosevelt, Teddy's daughter, in reference to her blue eyes. Another would be Berkeley Breathed's Calvin and Hobbes characters, named for philosophers.
I find almost the entire list of examples to be bad examples, except for the science and sports sections, and the science one is incredibly incomplete. There are dozens of scientific terms named in honor of people: Joule, Watt, Hertz, Kelvin, Ampere, Coulomb, Gauss, Newton, Newton, Descartes, etc.
Geography is full of namesakes. Victoria, NSW, Australia, is named after Queen Victoria; Georgia, USA, is named after King George; the state of Washington in the US, the city in the District of Columbia, and various universities around the US were named after George Washington; The District of Columbia and Colombia are both named for Columbus.
Wine bottles are named for Biblical kings; the moon of Pluto was named for the discoverer's girlfriend; US military ships are named in honor of earlier ships, or cities, or battles, depending on the ship; US military bases are named for servicemembers; Ben & Jerry's produces pun-incorporating ice cream names, such as Cherry Garcia and Phish Food. Even a child named for an ancestor is done to honor the ancestor.
I propose an entire rewrite, but I'd like to see if anyone has any objections. TychaBrahe ( talk) 21:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
According to the definition, the namesake must be the same, or similar, to the original name.
However, it seems to be common in the UK to use the word "namesake" to mean "having the same meaning in a different language", e.g. if a ship were named "The Dog", these people would say that it was named after the French ship, "Le Chien", i.e. that "The Dog" is the namesake of "Le Chien" due to the fact that they both have the same meaning. For example, one sees, on numerous sites on the internet, the identical phrase repeated re Queen Victoria being "Boudicca's "namesake"" (e.g. see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodicea, en.citizendium.org/wiki/Boudica,famous , y2u.co.uk/F_Boudica_Rebel_Queen_England.htm , english.turkcebilgi.com/Boudica , www.digplanet.com/wiki/Boudica ,aplaisancewithmossflower.blogspot.com ,wn.com/Prasutagus , etc.). Obviously there is a tremendous amount of cutting and pasting from some original (and unreferenced) source, but it is impossible to find the original because almost all of these are undated. The "justification" is supposedly the fact that Boudicca and Victoria, when translated into English, both mean "Victory", but this is a highly irregular use of the word "namesake", since their names are not even remotely similar, other than ending in "a".
If anyone has reason to believe that it is acceptable to use the word "namesake" in the above-described peculiar manner, please provide a justification or citation, otherwise one can only assume that this peculiar usage is unacceptable. 77Mike77 ( talk) 17:10, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
November 2013 proposal to merge List of companies named after people to a section of the article Namesake; specifically Namesake#Commercial products and entities. Input welcome. Discussion is to be held here (as it is the target article and section). GenQuest "Talk to Me" 09:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
@ Jdcrutch: I see that you've re-added the citation to Wiktionary. Wiktionary is not a reliable source, as confirmed by consensus in this discussion. The same point is discussed in this essay. Could you please explain why you feel the citation is appropriate in spite of this? — Granger ( talk · contribs) 17:43, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
When I was learning English as a foreign language, we were told that the English word namesake corresponds to Russian тёзка, which is used to denote any person sharing one's given name - any John Smith and John Baker. We teachers mistaken? We have the word однофамильцы for unrelated people sharing their family names - unrelated John Smith and Bill Smith or Mary Smith. If possibly unrelated people share first, last (and possibly middle name or patronymics), they are полные (complete) тёзки. Didn't find this in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GregZak ( talk • contribs) 22:29, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
The sentence here:
"The opposing term, referring to the original entity after which something else was named, is called an eponym"
seems to imply something that is not necessarily true.
The "opposing term" can also be called a namesake. For example, it is very common for a historical home or museum to refer to the person they are named after as their namesake.
And this is not wrong, according to the dictionary. Note for example,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/namesake
In Merriam Webster, the definititon is:
: one that has the same name as another especially : one who is named after another or for whom another is named
That "especially" is not absolute, it allows for the relation to work in the other direction. Look it up on Internet -- historical homes and museums named after the person who lived there do NOT refer to that person as their "eponym." Nor should they. That person is rightfully their namesake. AtomAnt ( talk) 23:29, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
How we call the people who have Same first and last names but different middle name? first last namesake? Double namesake? Kaiyr ( talk) 09:36, 20 November 2023 (UTC)