Namesake

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Namesake (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with eponym.
Namesake and eponym.

Namesake is a term used to characterize a person, place, thing, quality, action, state, or idea that has the same, or a similar, name to another.[1]

In the United States, the term is often used for a person or thing actually named after, rather than merely sharing the name of another.[2][3] For example, if a person, place, or thing is named after another person, place, or thing, then the name target is said to be the namesake of the name source. The earliest use reported in the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1635. Dictionaries suggest that the word probably comes from "name's sake", "for one's name('s) sake", for "name sake".

History

The term namesake was first recorded in 1635, referring to a place with the same name as another.[1] Among other recordings, a 1646 usage was carried through in an 1806 publication, entitled A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language.[4] Modern-day usage has expanded to several uses for the term.[5]

Usage

Using a namesake's name is a relatively common practice in naming children that has given rise to the large number of "Jr.", "III", and other name suffixes. Namesakes are often used in tribute to older, related persons, such as grandparents. Use of a namesake's name in a leadership position may indicate certain things, usually referring to certain traits of the namesake, such as in the use of papal regnal names.

Some commercial entities and products are named after their creators, such as the Trump Tower and Ford Motor Company. Items are also named after people associated with them, such as the teddy bear. This is especially the case with scientific discoveries and theories, such as Gibbs free energy. When the target name merely is derived from the source name without an additional "sake" connection, such usage more accurately may be called an eponym rather than a namesake.

Discrepancies in meaning (US usage)

There has been some discrepancy as to whether the name source or the name target takes the term namesake. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a namesake is a person or thing named after another.[6] In other words, the name target takes the term namesake, as in
"I was named after my grandfather. I am his namesake."
or
"Julian's Castle, Julian's namesake restaurant."
The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary are not so restrictive. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a namesake is a person or thing having the same name as another. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines "namesake" as "one that has the same name as another; especially one who is named after another or for whom another is named",[6] allowing the usage of:
"I met a person who happened to have the same name as me. We are namesakes."
By "for whom another is named", Merriam-Webster's Dictionary allows the term namesake to be used in reference to the name source as in,[6]
"I was named after my grandfather. He is my namesake."
Both usages of namesake are correct. This ambiguity sometimes may be resolved by the term eponym or "namegiver", which refers to the name source as providing the name to the name receiver.[7]

Examples of namesakes

Popular culture

Scientific terms

Sports

Commercial products and entities

For other examples, see List of companies named after people .

Professional examples

Namesake Cataloguing

Casual or accidental identification of personal namesakes can occur in daily life via a number of sources, including: telephone directories, newspaper births/deaths/marriages announcements, dictionaries of biography, internet search engines, etc.

There are some notable examples of deliberate searching for and identification of non-related personal namesakes.

  • Starting with a drunken wager, British Comedian Dave Gorman used a wide variety of methods to find namesakes, an exercise which then evolved into a 2001 stage show "Are You Dave Gorman" and which was subsequently made into a book and television series .
  • US actor/filmmaker Jim Killeen used the Google search engine to find personal namesakes for his 2007 documentary "Google Me"

See also

Look up namesake in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). 2009. 
  2. ↑ "Namesake". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2008. Retrieved August 12, 2008. 
  3. ↑ "Namesake". American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved 10 November 2012. 
  4. ↑ Walker, John (1806). A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language. Oxford University: J. Johnson, G. Wilkie and J. Robinson, G. Robinson, T. Cadell and W. Davies. 
  5. ↑ "Namesake." Dictionary.com Online Dictionary. 2008. Retrieved: August 12, 2008.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Kyff, Rob. October 3, 2007. The Word Guy: "Don't Forsake Meaning of Namesake" Accessed: August 12, 2008
  7. ↑ The American Heritage Dictionary "eponym" Accessed: April 15, 2012
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.