today i learned about eponyms.

while listening to NPR on the drive to work this morning, they did a segment on john marciano and his new book Anonyponymous: The Forgotten People Behind Everyday Words. here's an excerpt from the book:

As a word, eponymous is a bit anonymous itself. Its moment in the sun came with the release of REM's album Eponymous, a subtle dig at musicians who name records after themselves, such as Peter Gabriel, whose first four albums are all entitled Peter Gabriel. In short, an eponym is anything that's ever been named after anybody. The title of an autobiography, the name of a legal fi rm, Mercedes-Benz, Washington State—anything.


But eponymy doesn't necessarily involve the conscious act of naming. An eponym can also be a word that explodes into the language because of who a person is or what he or she did, often to that person's dismay.

some example eponyms from what i heard this morning: silhouette, frisbee, leotard, galvanize, tantalize.