This isn't just a list of things named after people, but "unexpectedly named". For example "Main Street" being named after a person is surprising since you'd usually expect it to come from "main" in the sense of "principal". "Price Club" is funny since you'd expect that it's referring to low prices.

Is there another pre-existing meaning for "poubelle" that makes this naming unexpected?

> Is there another pre-existing meaning for "poubelle" that makes this naming unexpected?

I mean, it _is_ the French term for "trash can".

It might be surprising to you, for example, if you'd suddenly find out that trash cans are named after "Michael Trashcan" or something along those lines.

It's a "can" that one puts "trash" into, so the term appears descriptive on the surface. When it then turns out to just be named after the inventor, it would indeed be quite surprising. Which is why I was asking whether there was some pre-existing meaning for the word. Otherwise it's like:

Oh my God! I just realized that Zeppelins were invented by Graf von Zeppelin. What are the odds of the person inventing airships also having the last name that airships are often called by?

I see your point and perhaps my example was poorly chosen. A better one would've been "a bin by Frederik Bin" or something along those lines. Poubelle is an everyday item, a term that the average person uses daily (and without knowing the exact etymology, I'd wager). And with that in mind, Zeppelin appears to be a poor comparison on your part.

The surprising thing is not that he invented the poubelle. It’s that he’s just one elected official in one city who increased its usage. I’m on the other side of the Atlantic, in beautiful Québec, and we also call it une poubelle.

It’s as if computers were called Jobs machines.

The word poubelle isn't capitalised, so it was surprising to me that it was from a name. In contrast, Zeppelin being capitalised gives the game away.

It's a different thing to some of the 'surprises' here, but interesting and I'm glad it was shared.

Can you believe Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's Disease

It's a bit how in British English vacuum cleaners are often called "Hoovers" after the brand. At one hand, yes, it is a family name, but the word has become so genericized that people even talk about "hoovering" their carpet and any connection to a name is lost.

And young children (and occasionally their parents jocularly imitating them) talk about "hooving" the carpet, because a "hoover" is obviously a machine for "hooving", right?

It behooves those parents to teach them the proper verb.

“Is the FBI in the habit of cleaning up after multiple murders?!!”

“Of course. Why do you think it’s run by a man called Hoover?”

This was a joke in the ‘80s Clue movie; albeit probably funnier to the English writer and the English actor saying the lines, as Hoover as a generecized trademark for vacuum cleaner is more popular there.

Even in the US, it's such a well-known brand that the joke still works well, despite Hoover not being so dominant as to have become the generic word for vacuum cleaner.

To vacuum, vacuuming, vacuumed

I think you're reading too much into the list. What's the non-name meaning of "Debian" supposed to be?

That one stood out as not seeming to fit the theme of the list to me. I dont think debian should have been included

It’s still unexpected

I had always just assumed it was a nonce word, like Kodak.

Named after a person named "Deb" (without the ian). Like the word "Jeffersonian" meaning the philosophy attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

No, Ian is just another name (Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian). Deb is after Debra, who then was his girlfriend and then wife. After that Murdock left Debian and the two divorced, but the name had stuck and there it is still now.

No, I know that's the real origin. I'm saying how the name could be interpreted other than deb+ian

Ah, my bad, sorry.

So kind of like how Thomas Crapper invented the modern toilet.

Dang. Beat me by 2 min.

There's another one, closer to home: dang.

I'd always thought the comment's attributes name was because "dang, time to chastise another one" but it turns out that "Dan G" is (maybe) a person!

Man, look at all that karma fly out of the window... Oops. Wrong site!