Two unexpected eponymous etymologies:
1) I just learned that the Japanese puppet theater bunraku (文楽) is named for Uemura Bunrakuken (植村文楽軒, 1751–1810), the puppeteer who established the Bunrakuza theater in Osaka. (The OED, bless its heart, simply says “A borrowing from Japanese” in its 1972 entry.)
2) I recently was confronted with the unexpected Russian verb сникерсну́ть [snikersnut′] ‘to eat Snickers; to speed up [from the advertising slogan “Don’t stop, grab a Snickers!”]’ (apparently used by those perennial culprits, Today’s Youth), and it made me wonder why Snickers are called that. Turns out they’re “named after the favorite horse of the Mars family.”
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