WARD'S BOOK OF EPONYMS Who gave their names to what If you have ever wondered who gave their names to things and places, you will find the answer here. You can read about John Sandwich, George Dallas, Gustave Eiffel, James of York (New York), Clarence Birds-Eye, Charles Baltimore and many many others.

This is Ward's Book of Eponyms where you will find a large list of people who had things named after them. This page is devoted to things named after people whose name begins with the letter: D

daguerreotype The inventor of permanent photography was Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1789–1851), born in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, France. He was by trade a theatrical scenery painter and in 1822, created the Diorama, a theatrical spectacle that exhibited large panoramic paintings on a transparent canvas illuminated on both sides. It was housed in a circular building with a revolving floor, allowing spectators to remain still and see everything. Daguerre went on to invent a permanent photographic image. He discovered a formula, his daguerreotype process, an impression made on a light-sensitive, metallic plate treated with iodine. The exposure time was fifteen minutes. Daguerre received international recognition. He was awarded the Legion of Honour and the state awarded him a pension for life. But the daguerreotype had a major shortcoming as it could not be copied. Very soon British inventors improved the procedure. W. H. Fox Talbot created the calotype process using a negative, and Frederick Scott Archer invented the wet-plate process.   Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre inventor of the daguerreotype dahlia The dahlia originated in Mexico, where it was discovered by Baron Alexander von Humboldt on a scientific expedition of 1789. He sent specimens and seeds to Spain, where they were examined by Professor Cavanilles, of the Madrid Botanic Garden. Cavanilles pronounced the specimen to be a new discovery and named it after Anders Dahl, the pre-eminent botanist of the day. Dahl played no part in the plants discovery and did not know of its existence until he was informed that a plant had been named for him. Dallas Texas Dallas is named for George Mifflin Dallas (1792 – 1864) who was a Senator from Pennsylvania and the 11th Vice President of the United States. The Dallas family came originally from Scotland, from Dallas near Elgin, a cattle-rearing town. Its name from the Gaelic, Dol As, means ‘meadow resting place’. The name, like its famous Texan namesake, is aptly descriptive. Darby and Joan refers to a devoted married couple who have lived to old age. John and Joan Darby were first mentioned in this context in a poem published in The Gentleman's Magazine by Henry Woodfall in 1735. Woodfall was apprentice to Darby, a printer of Bartholemew Close, London. The verse is a sentimental work about the elderly couple who are completely devoted to each other. In 1664, John Darby (1625-1704) went to work for Simon Dover, a printer, and when the master died, he married his widow Joan. The pair were Anabaptists and were constantly in trouble with the law for publishing Nonconformist tracts. Despite the persecution, their business thrived and when John died he left £10 to each of their children and left two houses to Joan plus a large deposit at the Bank of England. Joan died in 1709. They are buried at St Giles Church, Cripplegate, Fore Street, Barbican, London EC2Y 8DA. Davy lamp Sir Humphrey Davy was a British chemist who isolated sodium, potassium, and strontium by passing an electric current through a fusion of chemicals. His most remarkable invention, one that saved many lives, was the Davy lamp, made for miners, in an enclosed cage of fine-meshed wire that prevented the heat from igniting explosive gases. Davy was presented by grateful coal mine owners with a luxurious silver dining service. He asked for it to be melted down to make a Davy medal, to be awarded annually for the most important discovery in chemistry. statue of Sir Humphrey Davy The Derby is an annual horse race at Epsom Down, Surrey. Although races had been held since the reign of James I, it was Edward Stanley, twelfth Earl of Derby (1752–1834), who offered a prize in 1780 for an annual race of three-year-olds. By restricting the race to three-year-olds, he ensured that a horse could win only once. Another sportsman, Sir John Hawkewood, had also offered to sponsor the race so they decided who should have the honour on the toss of a coin. Derby won the toss, but Hawkewood's horse won the race, the first of all the Derby races. Derby Day became a festive occasion and, in the nineteenth century, Parliament adjourned for the day. In the United States the dome-shaped bowler hat is called a derby. A New York salesman told his customers that the hat was commonly worn in England at the Derby. diesel Rudolf Diesel, a German living in Paris, was twelve years old in 1870 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. His parents hastily fled to England but wanting young Rudolf to continue his education in German, sent him to an uncle in Augsburg. The tedious train journey lasted eight days as the engine continually broke down. When later Diesel enrolled at the Munich Polytechnical School, he remembered his tiresome journey and tried to build an engine that would be more efficient than those powered by steam. The first engine he constructed blew up in his face and he was almost killed but he carried on experimenting. He tried many substances to fuel his engines including coal dust, alcohol, vegetable oil and at last crude oil. He found that if he refined the oil, he could make the engine work efficiently and marketed his new product under the name diesel.   Rudolf Diesel who invented diesel Doc Martens The footwear of choice of skinheads, punk rockers and other youth cultures was invented by a German doctor, Klaus Märtens, who suffered a mishap when hiking in Bavaria and resolved to design a shoe that was safe and comfortable for walkers. He called his product Air Wair but when a British company, R Griggs & Co. Ltd., obtained a licence to produce and sell them in the UK, they were retailed under the name of their inventor. Dollar The original dollars were minted by a German count, Hieronymus Schlick, who called his coin the Joachimsthaler, named after Joachimsthal (Czech Jáchymov) now in the Czech Republic, where the silver was mined. The name soon became abbreviated to thaler and when similar coins were minted in the Americas, they were known as dollars in English. When the US government created its own currency, it adopted the term dollar and used silver coins similar to the coins in circulation in the Spanish colonies. The dollar sign $ comes from the Spanish coins which were minted in Bolivia. On the obverse, they bore an image of the Pillars of Hercules, draped with a ribbon inscribed ‘Plus Ultra’. The Pillars of Hercules were the straits of Gibraltar and ‘Plus Ultra’ (Latin: something more) was the land beyond the edge of Europe. A Spanish dollar showing The Pillars of Hercules. Doolally is an expression meaning to go mad or to lose one’s mind. Its name comes from a British army transit camp in India where soldiers were obliged to wait for a passage home after their period of service. The camp Deolali was notorious for its boredom and the psychological problems of those who passed through it. Dominoes is a game of great skill played, usually but not necessarily, by the Senior generation. It started as a recreation for monks in the monasteries as a variation of a dice game. The numbers on the dominoes used to represent every combination of the throws of a pair of dice. There were no blanks when the game started. The monks played the game after the final prayers of the day, the very last prayer being Psalm 110, which begins with the words ‘Dixit Dominus Domino meo’. The monks did not speak during the course of the game so if a player could not make a move, he made a knock under the table, hence the origin of the expression ‘to knuckle under’. Downing Street Number 10 has been the official residence of the British the Prime Minister since 1735, when George II gave it to Sir Horace Walpole. The street was built by Sir George Downing (1623–1684), who was a Member of Parliament under Cromwell. When Charles II came to the throne in 1660, Downing became the ambassador to Holland. He was not a great diplomat. While he was ambassador, England went to war with Holland twice. In 1671, he was imprisoned for deserting his post when the Dutch threatened to hang him. He was also suspected of taking bribes but nothing was proved. Downing certainly accumulated money, which he invested in property, which he rented out. He built Downing Street and other buildings in Whitehall on land, which he bought from impoverished noblemen. His portrait still hangs in the foyer of 10 Downing Street. Sir George Downing in the foyer of 10 Downing Street.

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