Wordnik.com: Lend Me Your Name: Comments

Comment by rolig, about 1 year ago

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:28:46 +0000

Then there are the adjectives formed from first names, or which relate to people known primarily by their first name:
Mosaic (Mosaic law)
Pauline (the Pauline epistles)
Petrine (the Petrine era in Russia)
Johannine (the Johannine doctrine of the Logos)
Elizabethan
Victorian
Jacobean
and many more.

As for last name derivations:
Dostoevskian, Pushkinian, etc.

A curious one is: Hugolian, from Victor Hugo. Also, I like what happens to Foucault: Foucauldian.

Comment by victoriapl, about 1 year ago

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:33:36 +0000

I just listed 'phildickian' for Phil K. Dick, if you want to add it. Great list, by the way. I started one of my own before I found yours. I'm going to delete mine.

Comment by papageno, over 2 years ago

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 23:04:29 +0000

I'm taking cues from the website I posted below and wikipedia's list of eponymous adjectives.

The article posted mentions a certain "Literary League's Language Label Committee," which apparently makes authoritative decisions on the forms used for the adjectives, but I can't seem to find any more info about it.

I do like the alternative adjectivizations of names though.

Comment by sionnach, over 2 years ago

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:27:07 +0000

So why is it Byronic, but not Pynchonic? And shouldn't that be woolfish? :)

I've definitely seen runyonesque in print.

personally, I would have gone with Tolstovian.

Then there is the vexing case of Fabian, which could be an adjective related to a certain procrastinating Roman general, or a noun representing a certain former teen idol, for whom the relevant adjective would presumably have to be Fabianesque.

Just saying...

Comment by uselessness, over 2 years ago

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:06:51 +0000

Oh, I think you forgot uselessnessian.

Comment by papageno, over 2 years ago

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:11:05 +0000

I thought you were implying it was a useless list because it can be done to any personage. I think marlovian is my favorite of the ones I've entered.

Comment by yarb, over 2 years ago

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:21:13 +0000

Eh? No - no dig intended by me!

Comment by papageno, over 2 years ago

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:10:44 +0000

Is that a dig at my list? : ) Nevertheless, I was looking for standard forms found in credible sources. You know, like websites.

Inspired by this nugget

Comment by yarb, over 2 years ago

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:27:02 +0000

Beckettian? You can do this for almost any noted personage.