Eponym

An eponym is a person, a place, or thing for whom or for which something is named, or believed to be named. For example, Elizabeth I of England is the eponym of the Elizabethan era.

Many genericized trademarks such as aspirin,heroin and thermos are based on their original brand eponyms.

The adjectives derived from eponym, which include eponymous and eponymic, similarly refers to being the person or thing after whom something is named, as "the eponymous founder of the Ford Motor Company" refers to founder's being Henry Ford. Recent usage, especially in the recorded-music industry, also allows eponymous to mean "named after its central character or creator".

History

Time periods have often been named after a ruler or other influential figure:

Pavlovian culture

The Pavlovian culture is the modern name given to a distinctive Upper Paleolithic culture that existed in the region of Moravia, northern Austria and southern Poland around 29,000 – 25,000 years BP. The culture used sophisticated stone age technology which allowed it to survive in the tundra region on the fringe of the ice sheets at the peak of the last glaciation. Its economy was principally based on the hunting of mammoth herds which supplied abundant meat, fat for fuel, hides for tents and large bones and tusks as a building material for winter residences.

Its name is derived from the village of Pavlov, on a slope of the Pavlov Hills, next to Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia. The site was excavated in 1952 by the Czechoslovakian archaeologist Bohuslav Klima. Another important Pavlovian site is Předmostí, now a part of the town of Přerov.

Excavation has yielded flint implements, polished and drilled stone artifacts, bone spearheads, needles, digging tools, flutes, bone ornaments, drilled animal teeth, and seashells. Art or religious finds are bone carvings and figurines of humans and animals made of mammoth tusk, stone, and fired clay. Textile impression made into wet clay give the oldest proof of the existence of weaving by humans.