5 Common Terms You Didn’t Know Were Named After People

The English language is fit to burst with terms named after people, a.k.a. eponyms. Some namesakes are pretty obvious—Elizabethan after Queen Elizabeth I, Orwellian after George Orwell, and so forth. Others are much sneakier, either because the words don’t sound like names at all or because you just never really thought about where they came from.

The latest episode of The List Show is devoted to some standouts. You can read few of them below, and get the full list by watching the video above.

1. Guy
2. Mesmerize
3. Gardenia
4. Macadamia nut
5. Paparazzi 
6. Other Eponyms Featured in the Video

Guy

All guys are named after Guy Fawkes. Literally. The word guy in the “man” sense is believed to be a nod to the most infamous co-conspirator of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Every November 5, British people would commemorate the event by burning raggedy, scarecrow-ish effigies of Guy Fawkes in the streets. They called these effigies “guys”—which got co-opted for any badly dressed or foolish person, and then, by the late 19th century, for any man in general.

Mesmerize

Whenever you’re mesmerized by something, thank Franz Anton Mesmer for giving you a way to describe the experience. Mesmer was the 18th-century German physician behind mesmerism, the use of a magnet to move fluids inside the body to heal illness. Mesmer’s theories and practices were widely discredited during his lifetime since any positive effects were “illusions caused by patients’ imaginations,” but his influence lives on in the lexicon.

Gardenia

Maybe you assumed gardenias got their moniker from where you might find them. They’re actually named after Alexander Garden, an 18th-century Scottish naturalist who did most of his work in South Carolina. Garden didn’t name the genus of flowering plants after himself—his fellow naturalist, John Ellis, named it in his honor.

Macadamia nut

Macadamia nuts don’t hail from Macadamia, because Macadamia isn’t a place. The nuts (which are technically seeds) and the trees they grow on are endemic to Australia. Nineteenth-century German expat Ferdinand von Müller named them after his Scottish colleague John Macadam.

Paparazzi 

Paparazzi are named after a character: Paparazzo, the opportunistic society photographer played by Walter Santesso in 1960’s La Dolce Vita. Director Federico Fellini didn’t invent the word; it was already an Italian surname. In his autobiography, Fellini said he found it in an opera libretto. But his screenplay co-writer, Ennio Flaiano, remembered the pair coming upon it in George Gissing’s travelogue By the Ionian Sea. Whatever its provenance, Fellini described the name as “like a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging.” Fitting for a photog on the prowl for the perfect shot.

Other Eponyms Featured in the Video

• Galvanize
• Salmonella
• Guillotine
• German chocolate cake
• Praline
• Shrapnel
• Braille
• Diesel
• Leotard
• Jacuzzi
• Doily
• Syphilis
• Gargantuan
• Bloomers
• Pants

This story was adapted from an episode of The List Show on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe for fascinating videos every week.

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