List of eponyms (L-Z) Details, Meaning List of eponyms (L-Z) Article and Explanation Guide

List of eponyms (L-Z) Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

An eponym is a person (real or fictitious) whose name has become identified with a particular object or activity.

Here is a list of eponyms:

A - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Z

L

Ferruccio Lamborghini – founder, Lamborghini
Paul Langerhans – Islets of Langerhans
Lev Davidovich Landau – Landau pole, Landau damping
Chris Langton – Langton's ant
Ernest Lawrence – Lawrencium, chemical element
Alfredo di Lello – Alfredo sauce
John Lennard-Jones – Lennard-Jones potential
Jules Léotard - leotard
Leudonus – Lothian
Abraham Lincoln – Lincoln Records; ships USS Abraham Lincoln (SSBN-602), USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72); Lincoln is a slang term for the United States five dollar bill
Charles Lindbergh, pilot – Lindbergh Law anti-kidnapping law
Josef Linzer – Linzer torte
Lisa, sister of Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons – Lisa Simpson, character in The Simpsons animated TV series
Ignacio de la Llave – Veracruz-Llave
Fritz London – London force
Huey Pierce Long, American politician – Huey, one of "Huey, Dewey and Louie", animated cartoon characters
Ruy López de Segura, Spanish monk – Ruy Lopez opening in chess
John De Lorean – De Lorean
Hendrik Lorentz – Lorentz force, Lorentz transformation
Lothar – Lorraine
King Louis XIV of France – Louisiana
Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, fourth daughter of Queen Victoria – Alberta
Hubert von Luschka – foramina of Luschka (outlets for cerebrospinal fluid in the brain); Luschka's crypts; Luschka's joints
Saint Lucy of Syracuse – Saint Lucia
Martin Luther – the Lutheran Christian denomination
Alois Lutz – Lutz, Figure skating jump
Charles Lynch – lynching, lynch law

M

Gaius Maecenas, a Roman patron of literature and the arts, a true "maecenas"
François Magendie – foramen of Magendie (outlet for cerebrospinal fluid in the brain)
Maggie, sister of Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons – Maggie Simpson, character in The Simpsons animated TV series
Jules Germain François Maisonneuve - Maisonneuve fracture
Benoît Mandelbrot – Mandelbrot set
Marge, mother of Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons – Marge Simpson, character in The Simpsons animated TV series
Henrietta Maria de Bourbon, wife of Charles I – Maryland
Pierre Marie – Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease
Saint Marinus – San Marino
John Marshall – Marshall Islands
Lionel Martin – Aston Martin
John L. Mason – Mason jar
Harold "Matt" Matson and Elliot Handler – Mattel
Jujiro Matsuda – founder, Mazda (also possibly inspired by Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda)
Maurice of Nassau – Mauritius
Maussollus - mausoleum, a monumental tomb
Hiram Maxim – Maxim gun
James Clerk Maxwell – Maxwell, unit of magnetic flux
Louis B. Mayer – founder of Louis B. Mayer Pictures which later merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (or MGM)
Dick McDonald and Mac McDonald – founders, McDonald's Corporation
Meirion, son of Cunedda – Merionethshire
Georg Meissner – Meissner corpuscles
Walter Meissner (and Robert Ochsenfeld) – Meissner effect (or Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect)
Lise Meitner – Meitnerium, chemical element
Nellie Melba – Melba toast
Dmitri Mendeleev – Mendelevium, chemical element
Prosper Meniere – Meniere's disease
Franz Mesmer (1734-1815) - mesmerism or hypnosis
Robert Metcalfe – Metcalfe's law
Michelangelo, Renaissance painter – Michaelangelo, one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic characters
Hermann Minkowski – Minkowski space, Minkowski's theorem, Minkowski addition, Minkowski inequality
Andrija Mohorovičić – Moho, (Mohorovičić's discontinuity;)
Pepe le Moko fictional character from the novel and movies of the same name – Pepe Le Pew Warner Bros. French skunk character
Vyacheslav Molotov (1890-1986) - Molotov cocktail
Robert Moog – Moog Synthesizer
Gordon Moore – Moore's Law
Jean Moreau de Sechelles – Seychelles
José María Morelos – Morelos
Prince Morgan the Old of Gwent – Glamorgan
Samuel Morse – Morse code
John Morton (1420-1500), Chancellor of England - Morton's Fork, a choice between two equally unpleasant alternatives
Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert – A&M Records;
Rudolf Mössbauer – Mossbauer effect
Lord Louis Mountbatten – Mountbatten pink, naval camouflage pigment
W. Mueller – Geiger-Mueller tube

N - O

John Napier – Neper, unit of relative power level, Napier's bones, method for performing multiplication
John Forbes Nash – Nash equilibrium, Nash embedding theorem
Joachim Neander (1650-1680), poet, for whom the Neanderthal (valley) was named, and thus the Neanderthal fossil found there
Baby Face Nelson – Baby Face Finlayson, formerly from The Beano comic
Henri Nestlé – created the milk-based food in 1867 which became Nestlé
John von Neumann – Von Neumann machine, Von Neumann probe, Von Neumann architecture, John von Neumann Theory Prize, IEEE John von Neumann Medal
Isaac Newton – Newton - unit of force, Newton's law of cooling, Newton's law of gravitation, Newton's laws of motion, Newton's rings
Arthur Nielsen – Nielsen Ratings from the Nielsen Media Research, Inc. firm
Alfred Nobel – Nobel Prizes, Nobelium, chemical element
Emmy Noether – Noether's theorem
Ian Norman and Gerald Harvey – Harvey Norman
Robert Ochsenfeld and Walter Meissner – Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect (Meissner effect)
William of Ockham – Occam's Razor
King Oengus I of the Picts – Angus
Georg Ohm – Ohm - unit of electrical resistance, Ohm's Law
Ongull, a Scandinavian landowner – Anglesey
Jan Oort – Oort Cloud
Hans Christian Orsted – Oersted, unit of magnetic field strength

P

David Packard and William Hewlett – Hewlett-Packard
Vilfredo Pareto – Pareto principle, Pareto efficiency, Pareto distribution, Pareto index
James Parkinson – Parkinson's disease
Blaise Pascal – Pascal - unit of pressure; Pascal's triangle, Pascal's Wager or Pascal's Gambit, Pascal programming language, Pascal's theorem
Louis Pasteur – Pasteurization
Wolfgang Pauli – Pauli exclusion principle
Axel Paulsen – Axel, Figure skating jump
Anna Pavlova – Pavlova
Giuseppe Peano – Peano axioms
Jean Charles Athanase Peltier – Peltier effect
Slavoljub Eduard Penkala (ballpoint pen) – Penkalo
William Penn – Pennsylvania
J.C. Penney – JCPenney
Roger Penrose – Penrose diagram, Penrose tiling, Penrose triangle, Penrose stairs
Dom Perignon (1638-1715), a blind French Benedictine monk – Dom Perignon (wine)
St. Peter – Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
Philip II of Spain – Philippines
Gerard Philips – founder, Philips
Joseph Hubertus Pilates - Pilates
Max Planck – Planck's constant, Planck's law of black body radiation
Friedrich Carl Alwin Pockels – Pockels effect
Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779-1851) - poinsettia
Jean Louis Marie Poiseuille – Poise - unit of viscosity, Poiseuille's Law
Charles Ponzi (1877-1949) - Ponzi scheme, a kind of fraud
Ferry Porsche – founder, Porsche
Percivall Pott – Pott's disease, Pott's fracture
William Procter and James Gamble – Procter & Gamble;
Joseph Pulitzer – Pulitzer Prize

Q - R

Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), Norwegian traitor - the term "quisling" became a synonym in many European languages for traitor
C. V. Raman – Raman spectroscopy, Raman effect
William John Macquorn Rankine – Degree Rankine, unit of temperature
Raphael, Renaissance painter – Raphael, one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic characters
John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh – Rayleigh scattering
Maurice Raynaud, French physician – Raynaud's disease
René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur – Réaumur, unit of temperature
Dorothy Reed – Reed-Sternberg cell
Arnold Reuben (possibly) – Reuben
Cecil Rhodes – Northern Rhodesia (Now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (Now Zimbabwe)
Charles Richter – Richter magnitude scale
Ron Rivest – the first letter of the name RSA, an asymmetric algorithm for public key cryptography, is taken from Rivest
Romulus – Rome
Count Karl Robert von Nesselrode – Nesselrode
Alvah Roebuck and Richard Sears – Sears, Roebuck, now Sears
Charles Rolls and Henry Royce – Rolls-Royce
Wilhelm Röntgen – Röntgen, unit of dosage of X-rays or gamma radiation
Andrés Quintana Roo – Quintana Roo
Gioacchino Rossini – Tournedos Rossini
Rota, a Saxon landowner ("Rota's land") – Rutland
Henry Royce and Charles Rolls – Rolls-Royce
Carle David Tolmé Runge – Runge's phenomenon
Lord Rutherford – Rutherfordium, chemical element
Johannes Rydberg – Rydberg constant

S

Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, or, the Marquis de Sade, whose writings gave the name to sadism.
Sheikh Safi Al-Din Ardabili – Safavid Dynasty, Safavids
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, one of the first to write of the pleasures of pain and humiliation, now called masochism
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who nibbled meat between slices of bread while playing cards, which became known as sandwiches
Franz Sacher, Vienna – Sachertorte
Ulrich Salchow – Salchow, Figure skating jump
Colonel Samarski, a Russian mine official – samarskite, the mineral after which the chemical element Samarium has been named
Sappho (630 BC - 612 BC), Greek poetess who wrote love poems addressed to women - sapphism or lesbianism
Muhammad bin Saud – Saudi Arabia
Adolphe Sax - the saxophone, a musical instrument
Louie Schmitt, animator – Louie, one of "Huey, Dewey and Louie", animated cartoon characters
Erwin Schrödinger – Schrödinger equation, Schrödinger's cat, Schrödinger's Kittens - a book
Ed Scott – the second letter of the company name BEA Systems, is taken from Ed, a co-founder
Robert Scott, Antarctic explorer – Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station
Ebenezer Scrooge, fictional character in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol – Scrooge McDuck
Glenn T. Seaborg – Seaborgium, chemical element
Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck – Sears, Roebuck, now Sears
Thomas Seebeck – Seebeck effect
Edgar Selwyn and Archibald Selwyn, who used the last three letters of their name alongwith the first four of Samuel Goldfish to create Goldwyn Picture Corporation, which later merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (or MGM)
Adi Shamir – the second letter of the name RSA, an asymmetric algorithm for public key cryptography, is taken from Shamir
Roger Shepard – Shepard tone
Henry S. Shrapnel (1761-1842) - shrapnel
Werner von Siemens – Siemens - unit of electrical conductance; Siemens AG - company
Rolf Sievert – Sievert, unit of radiation dose equivalent
Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767) - Silhouette
Issac Merritt Singer, inventor, improvements in the design of the sewing machine – Singer Corporation
Alexander Skene – Skene's gland
Oliver R. Smoot: Smoot
Hermann Snellen: Snellen chart
Snot, a Saxon landowner ("Snot's home" + shire) – Nottinghamshire
Solomon – Solomon Islands
John Philip Sousa – Sousaphone
William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930) - spoonerism
Johannes Stark – Stark spectroscopy, Stark effect
Jožef Stefan; and Ludwig Boltzmann – Stefan-Boltzmann constant
Carl von Sternberg (disputed) – Reed-Sternberg cell
George M. Sternberg (disputed) – Reed-Sternberg cell
John K. Stewart and Arthur P. Warner – Stewart-Warner
George Gabriel Stokes – Stokes, unit of viscosity
Levi Strauss – Levi Strauss & Co;
Count Stroganov (possibly Count Pavel Alexandrovitch Stroganov or Count Grigory Stroganov) – Stroganoff
Rashid Sunyaev and Yakov B. Zeldovic – Sunyaev-Zeldovic effect
Michio Suzuki – founder, Suzuki
Cambu Svayambhuva – Cambodia
Theodor Svedberg – Svedberg, unit of sedimentation rate