the.com/namesake
the polite fiction that being named after someone transfers their luck along with their syllables.
means A person or thing named after another, sharing the same name as someone or something else.
from A transparent old compound: 'name' plus 'sake.' The 'sake' here is the same one in 'for my sake' — from Old English 'sacu,' meaning a cause, purpose, or contention (a cousin of the legal 'sake' in 'lawsuit'). So a namesake is literally someone named 'for the sake of' another — named on their account. The word surfaces in English around the 17th century, and may have arisen from the older phrase 'for the name's sake.'
- old root
- From the phrase named for one's sake.
- inheritance trap
- Juniors spend lives escaping a senior's shadow.
- reverse cases
- Sometimes the thing outshines who it honored.
- two directions
- You can be a namesake or have one.
marie curie institute — french cancer research center named after nobel prize physicist, founded 1920
nobel prize — annual award named after alfred nobel, swedish explosives inventor, first awarded 1901