Eponym vs. namesake
There's often confusion about the word "namesake". Some, including this humble Web site, have said or written that Cita Dennis Hubbell is the namesake of our library. That's not correct! There's another word, "eponym", which is used in this case.
According to dictionaries, a namesake is something or someone named after someone else. An eponym, conversely, is the person for whom that thing is named. So...
- Mrs. Hubbell is the eponym of the library, and
- the library is the namesake of Mrs. Hubbell
We hope this clears things up! Here are definitions at Merriam-Webster:
