namesake
Americannoun
-
a person or thing named after another or whose name is given to another person or thing.
Little Dora lay asleep in the arms of her namesake, great-aunt Dora.
The memory of Robert and Signe McMichael is honored in their namesake, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
-
a person or thing having the same name as another.
The cities of Hyderabad, Pakistan, and Hyderabad, India, are namesakes.
noun
-
a person or thing named after another
-
a person or thing with the same name as another
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of namesake
First recorded in 1640–50; alteration of name's ( name + 's 1 ) sake 1
Explanation
If your parents named you after your Great Uncle Abner, then you are his namesake. The two of you share a very nice name. Use the noun namesake to describe the recipient of a handed-down name, like Bob Jr., or Ricky Smith III. Less often, the word also means anyone who shares a name with someone else, so you could refer to all the Emmas in your school as namesakes. The first recorded use of the word namesake was in the mid-1600s, and it probably began as the phrase "for the name's sake," before being condensed into a single word.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Totoro’s real launch into pop culture’s stratosphere came a year later, when NTV brought his namesake movie to a broader audience, exploding its fandom beyond Japan.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026
The 10-brand group, which apart from its namesake also includes marques such as Audi and Porsche, is planning to lay off at least 50,000 in Germany by 2030.
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
Shirley Temple gets passing recognition, only via her namesake drink when the Minions visit a nightclub and sip virgin cocktails loaded with cherries.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
Defending against the FCC and reorienting the company around its namesake streaming service are priorities.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
Apples were his wife’s favorite fruit, the pink of the azaleas her favorite color, and the roses her namesake.
From "Ophie's Ghosts" by Justina Ireland
Before he was an international sports mogul, he was Enos Stanley Kroenke from rural Missouri with sporting heritage scrawled right on his birth certificate—his namesakes were St. Louis Cardinals legends Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
His descendants revere Aegon the Conqueror so highly that he has numerous prominent namesakes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 3, 2026
After the family moved to England in 2010, the boys would often meet their namesakes at Etihad Stadium.
From BBC ● May 29, 2025
Like their mythical namesakes, these pygmy squids are intimately connected with their natural environments in the emerald waters of Okinawa.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 24, 2023
When she had visited Chicago a couple of years ago, she had told Petra that all of her namesakes had grown up to be very beautiful and very lucky.
From "Chasing Vermeer" by Blue Balliett
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
