word origins - people's names.

Not necessarily inventors, but here are some common words named after people:

guillotine
pasteurisation
bowdlerise
boycott
cardigan
casanova
chauvinism
caesarian
gerrymander
leotard
martinet
masochism
sadism
pompadour
quisling
sideburns
wellingtons
ritzy
saxophone
bloomers
dunce

There are lots of scientific units named after scientists, like:

Celcius
Joule
Fahrenheit
farad
faraday
gauss
gray
coulomb
henry
curie
decibel
Kelvin

Foods:

pavlova
stroganoff
praline

From characters in plays and books:

hooligan
malapropism
 
Also, there are lots of adjectives referring to people, like:

abrahamic
aegean
American
Aristolean
Augustinian
bacchanalian
benedictine
boolean
Byronic
Christian
Cyrillic
Daliesque
Dantesque
Darwinian
Davidian
Cartesian
Dickensian
Edwardian
Euclidean
eupicurian
fallopian
Faustian
Fortean
Freudian
Galilean
gargantuan
Gregorian
Hamiltonian
herculean
hermaphroditic
hermetic
Hippocratic
Hobbsian
Holmesian
Homeric
Humean
Kafkaesque
Kantian
Lagrangian
Lorentzian
Machiavellian
Maoist
martial
Marxist
McCarthyist
Napoleonic
Oedipal
ohmic
Orwellian
Panglossian
Promethean
Ptolemaic
pyrrhic
protean
Pythagorean
Pythonesque
Rubenesque
sadistic
satanic
Saturnine
Shakespearean
Sisyphean
Socratic
stentorian
thespian
titanic
vestal
Victorian
Wagnerian
 
There was a time when folks had only one name like John, Joseph, or Peter.

To distinguish various folks named John in a small town or neighborhood, People would say John the blacksmith or John the silversmith, or Peter the son of John..

When local politicians needed to keep better records (EG: for Tax collection data), they required folks to have an extra name. This resulted in last names like the following.

John Smith & John Peterson​

The above is the reason for Smith becoming a very common name: There are a lot of professions using Smith in the title: Black smith, silver smith, gold smith.

The above is the reason for many last names ending in son.
 
Dinosaur said:
The above is the reason for Smith becoming a very common name: There are a lot of professions using Smith in the title: Black smith, silver smith, gold smith.
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In Wales UK a common surname is said to be Jones, and so...

A Russian spy was dropped by parachute in the Welsh hills with instructions to contact a Mr Jones in the small village of Llanfair and give him the coded message: “The tulips are blooming well today.”
Arriving at the village he asked a small boy where Mr Jones lived and was directed to a small cottage.
He knocked on the door and the owner emerged: “Are you Mr Jones?”
“I am.”
“The tulips are blooming well today.”
Mr Jones stared at him in amazement then smiled: “Ah, you must have the wrong house.
“It's Jones the Spy you want.”
 
Almost all last names had some particular meaning long ago. For example.

My last name is Cadwallader (Welsh), which meant strategist (actually battle planner) in the distant past. I am not sure if the word still has that meaning in modern Welsh.​

BTW: The English were (perhaps still are) clever in sneaky ways.

There was a time when England & Wales fought over sovereignty. Hundreds of years ago (when some English king was circa 35-40), The English proposed that Wales accept England as sovereign with the promise that a prince of Wales would always be chosen as the next king of England after the demise of the current king.

The above seemed like a good deal to the Welsh.

20-40 years later, Wales & England were completely integrated, with the Welsh having no army or police force of their own. From that time on, The English king has always appointed some English noble to be a prince of Wales & later appoints him to be king of England.

England always appoints some member of the royal family to be the Prince of Wales & that prince becomes the King of England.

In modern times the above is not particularly important, but there was a long period of time when it was important.
 
Dinosaur said:
Almost all last names had some particular meaning long ago. For example.

My last name is Cadwallader (Welsh), which meant strategist (actually battle planner) in the distant past. I am not sure if the word still has that meaning in modern Welsh.​

BTW: The English were (perhaps still are) clever in sneaky ways.

There was a time when England & Wales fought over sovereignty. Hundreds of years ago (when some English king was circa 35-40), The English proposed that Wales accept England as sovereign with the promise that a prince of Wales would always be chosen as the next king of England after the demise of the current king.

The above seemed like a good deal to the Welsh.

20-40 years later, Wales & England were completely integrated, with the Welsh having no army or police force of their own. From that time on, The English king has always appointed some English noble to be a prince of Wales & later appoints him to be king of England.

England always appoints some member of the royal family to be the Prince of Wales & that prince becomes the King of England.

In modern times the above is not particularly important, but there was a long period of time when it was important.
Click to expand...
My understanding of history was that Edward I promised to appoint someone who did not speak English as the Prince of Wales. He then appointed a baby, his infant son. Since then the heir to the throne (usually the king's son) has always been the prince of Wales
 
Just a sad note to the Toronto Tragedy linked to german, there the word for dangerous is gefaehrlich, from the root fahren, to travel, to Gefaehrt, vehicles, possibly drawn by a horse. pferd. safer to stay home. dangers lurk outside.
very interesting list of origins !!!
 
nebel said:
Just a sad note to the Toronto Tragedy linked to german, there the word for dangerous is gefaehrlich, from the root fahren, to travel, to Gefaehrt, vehicles, possibly drawn by a horse. pferd. safer to stay home. dangers lurk outside.
very interesting list of origins !!!
Click to expand...
Except that's not true:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gefährlich#Etymology
comes from:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gefahr#German
comes from:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fara#Old_High_German
comes from:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/fērō
 
NotEinstein said:
Except that's not true:
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well, perhaps gefahr came from the dangers associated with fahren to travel.
Thought of another one while puttering in the garden:
Traffic in german is Verkehr, from verkehrt, gone wrong. haha. some genius back then foresaw gridlock.
 
NotEinstein said:
Might I suggest you look at the links I posted a bit closer, because they already point out the falsehoods
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bold added for emphasis
Yeah, I did and obviously I took the connection one step deeper. should have posted in the funny section.
not falsehoods, funnies. one not do funny, coming for me in the next 30 years is:
sterben, from starving. dying because of lack of oxygen, nutrients, nerve impulses.
 
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nebel said:
Yeah, I did and obviously I took the connection one step deeper. should have posted in the funny section.
not falsehoods, funnies.
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Please explain the joke in the part I quoted. Additionally, it being meant as a joke doesn't mean it's not false.
 
nebel said:
From Old Swedishfara, from Old Norsefara, from Proto-Germanic*faraną, from Proto-Indo-European*por-(“going, passage”).
here is the confirmation from your own link.
think before you try to make a stink.
you can' make it stick. if you make it too quick.
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I couldn't help but notice you're reading from the "Swedish" section. That's not what the link is pointing to; notice the section-name in the URL. Perhaps you should scroll up a bit, to the "German" section. You know, German, the language you were talking about?

I guess one of us indeed needs to "think before they try to make a stink."

nebel said:
It was not only funny, to me, but deeply true.
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Ah, it was funny to you, but you can't explain it. And perhaps it was deeply true to you, but it is false for everyone else. It must be frustrating, living in your own world with your own truth that you can't explain to others.

nebel said:
wiki should be amended imho
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Go right ahead; you're free to do so. Just don't be surprised if your falsehoods are corrected there as well.
 
nebel said:
From Old Swedishfara, from Old Norsefara, from Proto-Germanic*Pfaraną, from Proto-Indo-European*por-(“going, passage”).
The more language realized the danger in travelling the better. The vikings, the Dutch deutsch were great travellers fahren macht erfahren von den gefahren.
erfahren, experienced comes from travel too.
hope this is tolerated on an new english, not proto english site.
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So you're just going to ignore that you're wrong, and continue spouting this nonsense? Looks like I was right indeed: you are "living in your own world with your own truth". Good luck with that.
 
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