Eponym

Eponyms

An eponym is a word derived from the name of a real, fictional, mythical or spurious character or person. Most eponyms originate from a person's surname: boycott, for instance, from the Irish landlord Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott; dahlia, from the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl; the sousaphone, from the American bandmaster John Philip Sousa; and volt, from the Italian physicist Count Alessandro Volta. Many eponymous words come from literary, biblical or mythological sources: malapropism, from Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan's The Rivals; Dickensian, from the English writer Charles Dickens; as old as Methuselah, from the age of the Old Testament patriarch; and aphrodisiac, from the Greek goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite.

There are thousands of eponyms in everyday use in English today and study of them yields a fascinating insight into the rich heritage of the world's most popular language and its development. Here are some more examples of names that have been immortalised in such a way.

America    Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512), Italian explorer
atlas    Atlas, Titan in Greek mythology
August    Augustus Caesar (63 BC - AD 14), Roman emperor
boycott    Charles C. Boycott (1832-1897), Irish land agent