Roots
What’s in a name?
Deepti

A word or phrase derived from a name is called an ‘eponym’. The origin of the word eponym lies in the Greek eponumos (given as a name) that is made up of epi (upon) and onoma (name). Eponyms can be found everywhere around us. They can originate in the surname of a person, as in the word ampere, an eponym used for a unit of electric current after the name of the French physicist Andre-Marie Ampere who worked in this area.

The eponym limerick comes from the chorus song that invited people to visit the Irish county of Limerick. Sometimes, eponyms can be used as nouns as, for instance, in the case of words like leotard (Jules Leotard, French trapeze artist) and cardigan (the Seventh Earl of Cardigan). Verbs can also be eponymous, for example, words such as mesmerise, created from the name of the Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who used hypnotism as therapy.

Sometimes, metaphorical use is made of proper names when one calls a certain book ‘the Bible of the student’ or says that ‘this man is the Einstein of the institute’. Designers and painters often find their names used eponymously with their works; it is perfectly acceptable to say that ‘she was wearing a Gucci’ or ‘the museum has bought an M.F. Husain’.

There are a large number of eponyms in English, names that have blended so well with the lexicon that users have no idea of their origins. Guy, bedlam, tawdry, pander, sandwich, boycott, meander, denim and pandemonium are some examples of the above category. The device used for beheading people, the guillotine, is named after the man who suggested it in the first place. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, a French physician and a member of the Constituent Assembly, in 1789 proposed that a mechanical device should behead the people sentenced to death because this would be quick and thus humane. So, when such a machine was created in 1791, it was named after him. Our trusted guide, friend and philosopher, the mentor comes from the Greek Mentor, a faithful friend of Ulysses in Homer’s Odyssey.

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