Talk:List of eponyms (A–K)

Eponyms?

In situations where the name of something is derived from someone's status or title (e.g. The Giant's causeway being named after the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill), not specifically their name, does that count as an eponym? 60.242.210.126 (talk) 06:41, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Relevant discussions copied over from talk:eponym

Who's going to put one of those nice alphabets at the top? The list is getting very long!!! JFW | T@lk 17:30, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Done! Jay 10:04, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

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There are some websites that have fictious stories about the origins of some terms. Perhaps originally written for fun, they turn up in many articles and appear to be genuine. The list is provided here so they don't get into the page. Jay 07:47, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

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It would appear that this list is inconsistently sorted (e. g. Alice Lidell is listed under A). Also, I'm unsure under what letter should Prince Albert(his full name/title is 'Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Francis Augustus Charles Albert Emanuel)' so there's plenty of choice ;)) be listed. Jergosh 22:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

List of spurious or unreal etymologies

Invention	Person
Avocado	Jorge-Luis Avocado
Asphalt	Leopold von Asphalt60.242.210.126 (talk) 06:41, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Binge	Sir Oswald Binge
Buffet	Pierre-Alphonse Buffet
Bugle	Hereward Bugle
Cabaret	Antoine de Cabaret
Comma	Domenico da Comma
Condom	Earl of Condom
Corset	Etienne Corset
Crapper	Thomas Crapper (only a coincidence; word preceded him)
Curry	Sir George Curry
Ketchup	Noah Ketchup
Litre	Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre
Lager beer	Gottfried and/or Sigmund Lager
Marmalade	Joao Marmalado
Pilchard	Matthew Pilchard
Salon	Marquise Henriette de Salon
Trousers	Jacob Trowser

Merge from Kafkaesque

I removed the following from the Kafkaesque article. I'd append these to List of eponyms, but could use suggestions:

[[Brechtian]] 
[[Borges|Borgesian]] 
[[Lord Byron|Byronic]] 
[[Cartesian]] 
[[Dickensian]] 
[[Draco (lawgiver)|Draconian]]
[[Joycean]] 
[[Lovecraftian]] 
[[Machiavellianism|Machiavellian]] 
[[Nabokov|Nabokovian]] 
[[Orwellian]] 
[[Pinteresque]] 
[[Sadistic]]/[[Sadism and masochism|Sadism]] 
[[Tolkienesque]] 

My questions:

1. Are some of these not worth adding? It seems like any name could trivially be made into an eponym, (ad hoc for a review of an author's work for instance) and such usage would not merit a freestanding article—in fact, many of the above links are redirects or WP:DICDEFs, but probably matters little for this merge—but should they still get a mention on this list? Should any of the above be discarded?
2. Is there an article (or a word) for eponyms based on author's names?

/ edg ☺ ☭ 03:53, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Potential additions

There's Kafkaesque, Pinteresque, Tolkienesque here. What about Beatlesque and Gilliamesque, two -esque eponyms right after Kafkaesque in popularity, and probably on par with Tolkienesque? --79.193.92.152 (talk) 00:12, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Considering adding Davenport (sofa)? Have done simple editing before. Never done "talk." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronny8 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Merge from List of eponymous musical terms

This page has a small collection of eponyms which would be more useful here. --Kleinzach 04:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Unexplained eponyms

Anna Karenina has no explanation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.151.18.205 (talk) 04:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

How about a list of REAL eponyms?

Wow, most of the names in the list on this page are not eponyms at all. If Mr John Smith designed a test, and his test is called Smith's Test, well, that's not an eponym. Or if Mrs Jane Smith wrote in a particular style, and other works in that style is called Smithesque, well, that's not an eponym. The point of an eponym is that the word originated from the person's name but is no longer associated with that person in any way. If the meaning of a word is "related to person X" then it is not an eponym. The same can be said for trademarks or trade names that are named after a person who was involved in that trade. Can "Ford" really be called an eponym, just because it was named after Henry Ford?

Here's a nice little rule of thumb (works in most cases): if a modern English dictionary entry of that word writes the word with a capital initial, then it is probably not an eponym. Wikipedia sometimes uses a capital letter where modern dictionaries use lowercase, e.g. "caesarean section".

I realise that there is an itch to add to a long list, but if the list criteria is watered down, the list becomes useless as a list. Is there any way to trim this list without offending those who added the non-eponyms? Perhaps by writing real eponyms in bold? -- leuce (talk) 08:41, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Disagree about what is a REAL eponym

Many eponyms are capitalized and still associated with the person's name. Marxism and Kelvin scale are two examples. Their usage can be found in this Wikipedia guide on language usage. The three example listed in the first paragraph above are also eponyms, Smith's test, Smithesque, and Ford. To be generally accepted, the first two would require widespread usage, not just somebody's family or neighbors using the term. When a car is called a "Ford", as in the statement, "Look at that green Ford."; the word Ford is an eponym.

I do agree some of the words on the list may not be eponyms. I don't think A&M records or RSA qualify. What I question most is the need for this list at all. As mentioned above, these type list are a magnet for everyone to add their favorite examples. The fact that these words are eponyms is not a notable fact. If the word is notable it should have its own article, like Faraday constant, Celsius, and Chusing's disease. The article on eponyms should include some examples of the most common words and different ways they are formed. I think the rest have no place in an encyclopedia and all the list should be deleted including the category list in the main article. Anybody else have an opinion on the notability of these lists? Probing Mind (talk) 03:34, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Dashes

In 2007, someone replaced en dashes with em dashes throughout. I fixed; spaced en dashes per MOS:DASH. Dicklyon (talk) 19:14, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Google Books references

I noticed a number of references are the url to a Google Book link. I though editors might be interested in a tool which takes a link as input and creates a (usually) properly formatted ref.

Wikipedia citation tool for Google Books

I used it to improve two such references.

It really helps creates a much cleaner list of references. I hope you will try it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:23, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

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Edit Request – page consolidation

I'd like to propose consolidating the "List of eponyms (A–K)" page with "List of eponyms (L–Z)" page. I see no reason for the separation. Additionally, on the mobile page there does not appear to be a link to the L–Z page, nor linked alphabet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baughberick (talk • contribs) 01:52, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Initialisms are not Eponyms & Why Is This List Here? In this Form? At All?

"Len Adleman, American computer scientist – the third letter of the name RSA, an asymmetric algorithm for public key cryptography, is taken from Adleman." RSA is an initialism. The component letters of an initialism are not eponymic. I'll be removing the R and S, as well as the A, as soon as I locate them (which brings me to my second point).

Let me offer a thought (which will expose my bias as regards this article). Is it more likely that one would look to an article specific to an eponymic usage to determine its basis than that one would research an individual to determine whether his or her name has an eponymic usage? I certainly would! I rather doubt that anyone sits, thinking, 'I wonder if Ada Lovelace's name is an eponym?' And, in the unlikely event that such a thought should occur to me, I'd certainly look to the article about her, not to a list in which I'd soon discover that, contrary to all conventions, her entry is alphabetized by her personal name, not her surname, nor by the eponym derived from it.

I'm not a fan of a lot of the list articles on wikipedia but I can accept the value of some as a way to gather the totality of knowledge regarding a subject in one place (ex: a list of ghost towns in a state) but I can perceive of no instance in which a list such as this one is going to benefit anyone. Frankly, the content is lexicographic, not encyclopedic, and would be better suited to wiktionary than wikipedia - provided its content were reversed. Its current form is a joke - I can't be kinder about it, I tried and failed to think of a way. Irish Melkite (talk) 07:26, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

From M.G.J.Minnaert's -Light and Color in the Outdoors-

Interesting list! With a bit-o-luck I shall add several names and eponyms from M.G.J.Minnaert's interesting book -Light and Color in the Outdoors- (all sorts of easy-to-observe optical phenomena). I must say, I have all three parts of Minnaert's original series (Dutch language), known as -De Natuurkunde van 't Vrije Veld-. In these books, all sorts of known and unknown phenomena (in- and outdoors) are described. The amount of mentioned scientists, observers, and inventors is huge! DannyCaes (talk) 11:58, 31 March 2022 (UTC)