Eponyms:  The Game

Here is another example of my obsession with -nyms.

[Eponym:  noun (plural: eponyms)

1. a person after whom a discovery, invention, place, etc., is named or thought to be named.
2. a name or noun formed after a person.]
   

Okay, this is not really a game.  Rather it is a (hopefully fun) exercise to see how many people you know who eponymously gave their names to the following list of eponyms.

[And, yes of course I had to look up some of these on the internet!]

Let me know of your favorite eponyms.  I have mostly avoided the many scientific/medical eponyms, like Haley’s Comet or Addison disease, and the myriads of biological eponyms, like Anelosimus biglebowski (a spider named after the film The Big Lebowski) or Anophthalmus hitleri (a cave beetle named after Adolf Hitler in 1933 that is currently threatened due to high demand from collectors of Nazi memorabilia).  In addition to Stigler’s Law of Eponyms, which states that eponyms of scientific discoveries are rarely named after the person who actually first made the discovery, or the problem of biological eponyms being predominately named after White European males, I just find scientific/medical and biological eponyms mundane and boring.]

So here is a list of eponyms:  (answers below)

America

Bowdlerize

Boycott

Cardigan

Chauvinism

Derby

Dunce

Gerrymander

Leotard

Mesmerize

Nicotine

Paparazzi

Shrapnel

Sideburns