Eponym of Britain

A name, or noun formed after a person is called "eponym."

A famous example is "sandwich," which originally refers to the 18th-century Earl of Sandwich who insisted on eating bread and meat together while gambling. Also, "jeans" derives from the city of Genoa in Italy, where the type of cloth was first made.

"Britain" is also the case.

In medieval England, "Britain" was thought to have been named after one of the Trojan descendants, "Brutus." He is a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas who, attacked by the Greek, fled from Troy and become a founder of Rome.

Overall, the Trojan legend was massively popular throughout the Middle Ages in many respects: it helps to bestow a ancient "badge" with familial origin, enhancing nobility and boosting national prestige and identity.

English people were not able to stay silent as to this "grand" narrative and added, rather ambitiously, some pages of another story: They claimed that the name of Britain has its origin in this Brutus of Troy, who in some chronicles is presented as the grandson or great grandson of Aeneas!

His name is sometimes confused with "Brutus" in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (Et tu, Brute?), but another Brutus is the very eponymous founder of Britain.


Works Referred:
Yule, George. The Study of Language. 3rd. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006.