List of eponyms (A–K)
An eponym is a person (real or fictitious) from whom something is said to take its name. The word is back-formed from "eponymous", from the Greek "eponymos" meaning "giving name".
Here is a list of eponyms:
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I–J - K - L–Z
A
- Achilles, Greek mythological character — Achilles' tendon; Achilles' heel
- Adam, Biblical character — Adam's apple
- Adam Walsh, Abduction-Murder Victim -Code Adam
- Alvin Adams (1804–1877) — Adams Express
- Len Adleman — the third letter of the name RSA, an asymmetric algorithm for public key cryptography, is taken from Adleman
- Agrippina the Younger — Cologne, Germany (formerly Colonia Agrippina)
- Alfred V. Aho — the first letter of the name awk, a computer pattern/action language, is taken from Aho
- Matthew Algie — tea and coffee merchant company
- Alice Liddell — Alice in Wonderland, Alice in Wonderland syndrome
- Alice Roosevelt - Alice blue, said to be the color of her eyes
- Alois Alzheimer — Alzheimer's disease
- Albert, Prince Consort — Prince Albert piercing, a common form of male genital piercing
- Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss — A&M Records
- André-Marie Ampère — ampere — unit of electric current, Ampère's law
- Roald Amundsen — Amundsen Sea; Amundsen crater, a crater on the Moon; Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station
- José de Anchieta — Anchieta Island, Anchieta Highway, in Brazil
- Anders Jonas Ångström — angstrom, unit of distance
- Virginia Apgar — the Apgar score, used to determine the general health of neonates
- Saint Thomas Aquinas — many educational institutions
- Rafael Moreno Aranzadi, nicknamed Pichichi — The Pichichi Trophy
- Archimedes — Archimedes' screw, Archimedes' principle
- William George Armstrong — Armstrong breech-loading gun
- Benedict Arnold — traitor
- Hans Asperger — Asperger's syndrome
- Robert Atkins (nutritionist) — Atkins Diet
- Atlas, a Titan who carried the sky on his shoulders — atlas
- Aurélio Buarque de Holanda — Aurélio's Brazilian Portuguese Dictionary.
- Augustus Caesar — the month of August; the city of Zaragoza (originally Caesaraugustus); the city of Caesarea in Israel; numerous other cities once named Caesarea, the Caesarian section, because he was supposedly born in this manner
- R. Stanton Avery — Avery Dennison Corporation
- Amedeo Avogadro — Avogadro's number, Avogadro's Law
B
- Isaac Babbitt — Babbitt metal.
- Joseph Jules François Félix Babinski, French neurologist — Babinski reflex or Babinski sign, common name for Plantar reflex
- Karl Baedeker — Baedeker's
- Leo Baekeland — Bakelite
- Balthazar traditional name for one of the Three Wise Men — 12 litre wine bottle (see Wine bottle#Sizes)
- Barbara, daughter of Ruth Handler, creator of Barbie — Barbie doll
- Joseph Barbera and William Hanna — Hanna-Barbera Productions
- Yvonne Barr and Sir Anthony Epstein — Epstein-Barr virus
- Jean Alexandre Barré — Guillain-Barré syndrome
- Caspar Bartholin the Younger — Bartholin's gland
- Basarab I — Bessarabia
- Karl Adolph von Basedow — Graves-Basedow disease
- Tomas Bata — founder of Bata Shoes; Bata Shoe Museum, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Batawa, Ontario; Batanagar, India
- Francis Beaufort — Beaufort scale.
- Heinrich Beck — Beck's beer, Beck's Futures art prize
- Louis de Béchamel, a courtier to King Louis XIV — Béchamel sauce
- Henri Becquerel — becquerel, unit of radioactivity
- Hulusi Behçet, Turkish dermatologist — Behçet's disease
- Adrian Bejan — Bejan number
- Alexander Graham Bell — bel — unit of relative power level; Bell Labs, BellSouth, Bellcore (now Telcordia Technologies), Regional Bell operating company — companies. Also gave birth to a slang term i.e. give James a bell, call James on the telephone.
- Edvard Beneš - Beneš decrees
- Carl Benz — Benz & Cie. (later Daimler-Benz)
- Hiram Berdan — Berdan Sharps Rifle
- David Berkowitz also known as "Son of Sam" — Son of Sam law
- Juan de Bermudez — Bermuda
- Daniel Bernoulli — Bernoulli's principle
- Sergei Natanovich Bernstein, Bernstein polynomial
- Yogi Berra, baseball player — Yogi Bear, a bear in animated cartoons; Yogiisms
- Henry Bessemer — Bessemer converter
- Pierre Bézier, French engineer and creator of the Bézier curve
- Bieda, a Saxon landowner ("Bieda's ford" + shire) — Bedfordshire
- Laszlo Biro — Biro, (ballpoint pen)
- Otto von Bismarck, first German Chancellor — Bismarck Archipelago and Bismarck Sea near New Guinea; German battleship Bismarck as well as two ships of the Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine); Bismarck, North Dakota
- Fischer Black and Myron Scholes — Black-Scholes model of options pricing
- Amelia Bloomer (1818–1894) — bloomers
- Boann the Irish Goddess — The river Boyne
- Johann Elert Bode and Johann Daniel Titius — Titius-Bode Law
- Niels Bohr — Bohr magneton, Bohr radius, bohrium, chemical element
- Lecoq de Boisbaudran — gallium, chemical element. Although named after Gallia (Latin for France), Lecoq de Boisbaudran, the discoverer of the metal, subtly attached an association with his name. Lecoq (rooster) in Latin is gallus.
- Simón Bolívar — Bolivia, Bolîvar department, Colombia, various cities and tows named Bolívar en Venezuela and Colombia, Venezuelan bolívar, Bolívar (cigar brand)
- Ludwig Boltzmann — Boltzmann constant, Stefan-Boltzmann constant, Stefan-Boltzmann law
- Karel Havlíček Borovský - Havlíčkův Brod
- B J T Bosanquet — bosie, the Australian term for the googly
- Satyendra Nath Bose — bosons, Bose-Einstein statistics, Bose-Einstein condensates
- Professor Amar Bose — Bose Speakers
- Dr. Elbert Dysart Botts, Caltrans engineer - Bott's Dots, a street and highway lane separator
- Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French navigator - the bougainvillea plant, which he discovered
- Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott (1832–1897) — boycott
- Robert Boyle — Boyle's Law
- Thomas Bowdler (1754–1825), published an edition of Shakespeare without words or expressions unsuitable to family reading, hence bowdlerize
- Jim Bowie — Bowie knife
- Bowman's Capsule, named for Sir William Bowman, a British anatomist
- Brahmagupta — Brahmagupta's formula, Brahmagupta's identity, Brahmagupta's trapezium, Brahmagupta's problem, Brahmagupta's polynomial
- Louis Braille (1809–1852) — the braille writing system for the blind
- Robert Brown — Brownian motion
- John Browning — Browning firearms, including the Browning Automatic Rifle
- Prince Brychan — Brecknockshire
- Bucca, a Saxon landowner ("Bucca's home" + shire) — Buckinghamshire
- Professor Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811–1899) — Bunsen burner
- General Ambrose Burnside — sideburns
C
- John Cadbury — opened his shop in 1824 which became the company Cadbury
- Julius Caesar — the month of July, Caesar cipher, the titles Czar, Tsar, and Kaiser, the Bloody Caesar cocktail. An urban legend also erroneously credits Julius Caesar as having given his name to the Caesarian section; the two are likely unrelated, however.
- John Calvin, 16th century theologian — the religious doctrine of Calvinism; Calvin's name (with Thomas Hobbes) inspired name of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip
- Caesar Cardini, restaurateur — Caesar salad
- Gian Giacomo Girolamo Casanova — casanova, a womanizer
- Sam Carr, neighbour of David Berkowitz also known as "Son of Sam" — Son of Sam law
- René Descartes, also known as Cartesius — Cartesian coordinate system
- Hendrik Casimir — Casimir effect
- Eduard Čech - Čech cohomology, Čech complex, Čech homology, Stone–Čech compactification
- Anders Celsius — degree Celsius (unit of temperature) Celsius (Moon crater)
- Ceredig, son of Cunedda — Cardigan
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar — Chandrasekhar limit, Chandra X-ray Observatory
- Jean-Martin Charcot, French neurologist — Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease; Maladie de Charcot, the French name for motor neurone disease
- King Charles I of England — North Carolina and South Carolina
- Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor — castle Karlštejn, city Karlovy Vary, Charles University, Charles Bridge, asteroid 16951 Carolus Quartus
- Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor — château Karlova Koruna
- Jacques Charles and Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac — Law of Charles and Gay-Lussac (frequently called simply Charles' Law)
- Bobby Charlton — the "Bobby Charlton" comb over hairstyle
- Nicolas Chauvin — chauvinism
- Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov — Cherenkov effect
- Jesus Christ, "The Saviour" — El Salvador, Christianity, Christmas
- Saint Christopher — Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Walter Chrysler — founder of Chrysler, DaimlerChrysler
- Alfred Chuang — the third letter of the company name BEA Systems, is taken from Alfred, a co-founder
- Alonzo Church — Church-Turing thesis, Church-Turing-Deutsch principle
- Cincinnatus, Roman statesman — Cincinnati, Ohio (indirectly)
- Senator Claghorn, regular character on the Fred Allen radio show — Foghorn Leghorn, Warner Bros. cartoons
- Claudius, Roman emperor — the city of Kayseri, formerly Caesarea Mazaca, in Turkey
- Ruth Cleveland, daughter of Pres. Grover Cleveland — Baby Ruth candy bars
- Bill Coleman — the first letter of the company name BEA Systems, is taken from Bill, a co-founder
- Samuel Colt — Colt revolver
- Christopher Columbus — many places and territories, see Columbus, Colombia, Colombo, British Columbia in Canada
- Arthur Compton — Compton effect
- Constantine I - Roman Emperor who in 330 moved the capital of the Empire to Constantinople
- Captain James Cook — Cook Islands; Cooktown (Queensland); James Cook University (Townsville); Cook (suburb of Canberra; co-named for Sir Joseph Cook); Cooks River; Cook (Federal electorate); James Cook University Hospital (Marton, Middlesbrough, England)
- Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis — Coriolis effect
- Charles-Augustin de Coulomb — coulomb — unit of electric charge, Coulomb's law
- Michael Cowpland — founded the software company Corel (from Cowpland's Research Laboratory). Cowpland also co-founded the PBX Design / Build Company Mitel with Terry Matthews. (Mitel stands MIke and TErry's Lawnmowers)
- Thomas Crapper - Crapper
- Seymour Cray — Cray Research
- Cunedda — Gwynedd
- Marie and Pierre Curie — curie, unit of radioactivity, curium, chemical element
- Pierre Curie — Curie point
- Harvey Cushing — Cushing Disease, a pituitary tumor producing adrenocorticotropic hormone that causes excessive cortisol production
- Harvey Cushing — Cushing's Syndrome, a clinical condition characterized by excessive production of cortisol
- Saint Cuthbert ("church of Cuthbert") — Kirkcudbright
D
- Jacques Daguerre — Daguerreotype
- Anders Dahl (1751-1789) — Dahlia
- Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz — Daimler-Benz (later DaimlerChrysler)
- John Dalton — dalton, non-SI unit of atomic mass
- Glenn Danzig -- Danzig, founder of the Heavy Metal band Danzig
- Charles Darwin — Darwinism, Neural Darwinism, Social Darwinism, Darwinian Happiness, Darwin's theory of evolution, Darwinian selection, Non-darwinian evolution, Darwinian medicine, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin Mounds, Charles Darwin University, Darwin College, Cambridge, Charles Darwin National Park, Adelaide-Darwin railway, Darwin Awards, Darwin's finches, Darwin Island, Charles Darwin Research Station, Darwin Bay, Lecocarpus darwinii (a tree species) in (Galápagos Islands), Charles Darwin Foundation
- Adi Dassler — founder of adidas
- Arthur Davidson and William Harley — Harley-Davidson
- Humphry Davy — Davy lamp
- Paul de Casteljau, de Casteljau's algorithm
- Michael Dell — founder of Dell, the computer company
- David Eisenhower, grandson of US President Dwight Eisenhower — Camp David US presidential retreat
- Thomas Derrick (c. 1600), British hangman — Derrick (lifting device)
- Melvil Dewey — Dewey Decimal System
- Thomas Edmund Dewey, American politician — Dewey, one of "Huey, Dewey and Louie", animated cartoon characters
- David Deutsch — Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle
- Bo Diddley — Popularizer of the Bo Diddley beat
- Rudolf Diesel — the diesel engine
- Paul Dirac — Dirac's constant, Dirac equation, Dirac delta function, Dirac sea, Dirac Prize, Fermi-Dirac statistics
- Walt Disney — founder, The Walt Disney Company, Disneyland
- Doily family (c. 1700)
- Ray Dolby — Dolby Stereo, Dolby Surround and Dolby Pro Logic
- Donatello, Renaissance painter — Donatello, one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic characters
- Christian Doppler — Doppler radar, Doppler effect
- Charles Dow and Edward Jones — Dow Jones & Company
- Herbert Dow — The Dow Chemical Company
- Guillaume Dupuytren — Dupuytren's contracture, Dupuytren's fracture
- Dr. August Dvorak — Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
- Dylan Dog - Italian comic series
E
- Thomas Edison — Edison effect, Edison Records, Edisonian approach, Edison, Georgia, Edison, New Jersey, Edisonade
- Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (younger brother of King George IV and King William IV), commander of British forces in Halifax — Prince Edward Island
- Gustave Eiffel — Eiffel Tower, designer
- Albert Einstein — Einstein refrigerator, einsteinium — chemical element, Bose-Einstein statistics, Bose-Einstein condensates
- Queen Elizabeth I of England, the "Virgin Queen" — Virginia and West Virginia
- Saint Elmo — St. Elmo's fire
- Loránd Eötvös — eotvos, gravitational gradient
- Sir Anthony Epstein and Yvonne Barr — Epstein-Barr virus
- Lars Magnus Ericsson — Ericsson
- Leonhard Euler — Euler's formula, Eulerian path, Euler equations; see also: List of topics named after Leonhard Euler
- Bartolomeo Eustachi — Eustachian tube
- Sir George Everest — Mount Everest
- Ewale a Mbedi — Duala people, Douala (from a variant of his name, Dwala)
F
- Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) — the Fahrenheit scale
- Gabriele Falloppio — Fallopian tube
- Michael Faraday — farad — SI unit of capacitance, faraday — cgs unit of current Faraday constant, Faraday effect, Faraday's law of induction, Faraday's law of electrolysis
- Guy Fawkes — guy
- Enrico Fermi — fermions, Fermi energy, Fermi paradox, fermium — chemical element, Fermi-Dirac statistics. fermi (obsolete name for femtometre)
- Enzo Ferrari — founder, Ferrari
- George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. — Ferris wheel
- Richard Feynman — Feynman diagram
- Fib of the Picts, one of the seven sons of Cruithne — Fife
- Leonardo Fibonacci (1175 -1250), Mathematician - Fibonacci Numbers
- Robert Fisk - Fisking
- B.C. Forbes — Forbes magazine
- Henry Ford — Ford Motor Company
- Matthias N. Forney — Forney locomotive
- William Forsyth (1737-1804) — Forsythia
- Charles Fort — Forteana, Fortean Society, Fortean Times
- Benjamin Franklin — Franklin stove, franklin — cgs unit of electric charge
- William Fox — 20th Century Fox
- Sigmund Freud — Freudian slip
- Guido Fubini (1879 - 1943), Math/Measurements - Fubini's Theorem
- Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566) — Fuchsia
- Tetsuya "Ted" Fujita (1920–1998) — Fujita Scale
- Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) — Fullerene
G
- Johan Gadolin, Finnish chemist and geologist — gadolinite, the mineral after which the chemical element gadolinium has been named
- Thomas Gage (botanist) — greengage
- Uziel Gal — the Uzi submachine gun
- Galileo Galilei — galileo or gal, unit of acceleration
- Israel Galili — the Galil assault rifle
- Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), discovered the Galvanic response of muscles to electricity. The process of galvanization is also named after him.
- James Gamble and William Procter — Procter & Gamble
- Henry Laurence Gantt — Gantt chart
- John Garand — M1 Garand rifle
- Alexander Garden (naturalist) - after whom the gardenia was named.
- Giuseppe Garibaldi — Garibaldi biscuits, Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi
- Gideon Gartner — Gartner
- Hermann Gartner — Gartner's duct
- Richard J. Gatling — Gatling gun
- Carl Friedrich Gauss — gauss — unit of magnetic induction, Gauss' law; see also: List of topics named after Carl Friedrich Gauss.
- Enola Gay Tibbets — Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb. Tibbets' son Paul Tibbets, pilot of the plane, named it after his mother.
- Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Jacques Charles — Law of Charles and Gay-Lussac
- Lou Gehrig, American Baseball player — Lou Gehrig's Disease
- Hans Geiger — Geiger counter, Geiger-Müller tube
- King George I of Great Britain — Georgia (U.S. state)
- Elbridge Gerry - gerrymandering
- Domingo Ghirardelli — Ghirardelli Chocolate Company
- Josiah Willard Gibbs — Gibbs free energy, Gibbs phenomenon
- Thomas Gilbert — Kiribati
- Gaston Glock — GLOCK GmbH
- Kurt Gödel — Gödel's incompleteness theorem, Gödel's ontological proof
- Samuel Goldwyn — Goldwyn Picture Corporation, later merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (or MGM)
- Wilbert Gore — Gore-Tex
- Klement Gottwald — Zlín, a city in Moravia, the Czech Republic, was renamed Gottwaldov during 1949—1990.
- Ernst Gräfenberg — Gräfenberg spot (G-spot)
- Sylvester Graham — Graham crackers, Graham flour
- Thomas Graham — Graham's Law
- Robert James Graves — Graves-Basedow disease
- Louis Harold Gray — gray, unit of absorbed dose of radiation
- Vicente Guerrero — Guerrero
- Georges Guillain — Guillain-Barré syndrome
- Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814) — advocate of what came to be called the guillotine
- Henry C. Gunning — mineral Gunningite
- Robert John Lechmere Guppy (1836–1916) — Guppy or guppie
H
- Amber Hagerman, abducted child - AMBER Alert
- Otto Hahn — hahnium, chemical element. This element name is not accepted by IUPAC. See element naming controversy
- Edwin Hall — Hall effect
- Hugh Halligan — Halligan bar
- Laurens Hammond — Hammond Organ
- Hamo, a 6th century Saxon settler and landowner — Hampshire
- John Hancock, signatory of the US Declaration of Independence — John Hancock, a signature
- Elliot Handler and Harold "Matt" Matson — Mattel
- William Hanna and Joseph Barbera — Hanna-Barbera Productions
- Gerhard Armauer Hansen — Hansen's disease
- William Harley and Arthur Davidson — Harley-Davidson
- Douglas Hartree — Hartree energy
- Gerry Harvey and Ian Norman — Harvey Norman
- Hakaru Hashimoto — Hashimoto's thyroiditis
- Hassan-i-Sabah, leader of the murderous Hashshashin cult — assassin from hassansin (this etymology is disputed)
- Victor Hasselblad — Hasselblad, medium format photographic camera system
- Stephen Hawking — Hawking radiation
- Paul Hawkins — Hawk-Eye tracking system used in cricket and other sports
- Frank Hawthorne — mineral Frankhawthorneite
- Oliver Heaviside and Arthur Edwin Kennelly — Kennelly-Heaviside layer
- Joseph Henry — henry, unit of inductance
- William Henry — Henry's law
- Heinrich Rudolf Hertz — hertz, unit of frequency
- William Hewlett and David Packard — founders, Hewlett-Packard
- Edward C. Heyde — Heyde's syndrome
- Miguel Hidalgo — Hidalgo
- David Hilbert — Hilbert's program
- Eugen von Hippel — Von Hippel-Lindau disease
- Harald Hirschsprung, Danish physician — Hirschsprung's disease
- Paul von Hindenburg — after whom the Hindenburg airship was named
- Thomas Hobbes, 17th century pahilosopher — Hobbes from "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip
- Thomas Hobson (1544–1630), stable manager in England — Hobson's choice, an only apparently free choice that is no choice at all
- Thomas Hodgkin — Hodgkin's disease, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
- Homer, father of Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons — Homer Simpson, character in The Simpsons animated TV series
- Sherlock Holmes - anyone who solves a mystery or a difficult problem, based on the fictional character by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Soichiro Honda — founder, Honda
- Mark Honeywell — founder, Honeywell
- Robin Hood, English folk hero — Robin of the Batman series
- Robert Hooke — Hooke's law
- William Henry Hoover (1849–1932) — The Hoover Company; in British English, the verb "hoover" means "to vacuum a floor" while the noun is the vacuum cleaner. The word "hoover" has also come to mean anything that is sucked up at a great rate ("They hoovered their way through the banquet").
- August Horch — founder of Audi (audi is Latin for horch. It means listen in English)
- James Horlick and William Horlick — founded the company Horlicks in 1873
- Frank Hornby - inventor of Meccano, Hornby and Hornby-Dublo train sets, and Dinky Toys
- William Howe (1803–1852) — Howe truss bridges
- Hroc, an ancient landowner ("Hroc's fortress" + shire) — Roxburghshire
- Howard Hughes — Hughes Aircraft company, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Hughes Airwest airlines, Hughes Glomar Explorer ship
- Howard R. Hughes, Sr. — Hughes Tool Company, Baker Hughes company
- John Huss (Czech: Jan Hus) — Hussite, Czechoslovak Hussite Church
I–J
- Max Immelmann — Immelmann turn used in aviation.
- Eleuthère Irénée du Pont — DuPont
- Ivan the Terrible — Ivy the Terrible from The Beano comic
- Joseph Marie Jacquard — Jacquard loom
- Jacob — Israel
- Candido Jacuzzi — inventor of the jacuzzi whirlpool bath.
- Calamity Jane — Calamity James from The Beano comic
- Karl Jansky — jansky, unit of flux density
- Robert Jarvik, MD - Jarvik artificial heart
- Jeremiah, the Biblical prophet — jeremiad
- Jeroboam, first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel — jeroboam wine bottle
- Edward Jones and Charles Dow — Dow Jones & Company
- Brian David Josephson — Josephson junction, Josephson effect
- James Prescott Joule — joule, unit of energy, unit of work, unit of heat
- Jerry Seinfeld - co-wrote T.V. sitcom Seinfeld
K
- Franz Kafka — adjective Kafkaesque
- Mikhail Kalashnikov — the Avtomat Kalashnikova series of weapons, including the AK-47, the Kalashnikov Handheld Machine Gun or Ruchnoi Pulemet Kalashnikova obraztsa 1974g (RPK-74)
- Kamen Rider - The main protagonists of the various series in this Japanese TV franchise are named after their corresponding TV series.
- Ingvar Kamprad — the first two letters of IKEA, the home furnishings retailer he founded
- Gaetano Kanizsa, Italian psychologist — Kanizsa triangle
- Megan Kanka, abducted child - Megan's Law
- Moritz Kaposi, Hungarian dermatologist — Kaposi's sarcoma
- Theodore von Kármán — Karman line
- Anna Karenina
- Tadao Kashio — founder of Casio
- Shozo Kawasaki — founder, Kawasaki Heavy Industries
- Lord Kelvin — kelvin, unit of thermodynamic temperature
- John F. Kennedy — John F. Kennedy International Airport, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Kennedy Center Honors, John F. Kennedy University
- Arthur Edwin Kennelly and Oliver Heaviside — Kennelly-Heaviside layer
- Brian W. Kernighan — the third letter of the name awk, a computer pattern/action language, is taken from Kernighan
- John Kerr (physicist) — Kerr effect
- Wilhelm Killing — Killing vector field
- Gustav Kirchhoff — Kirchhoff's Laws
- Donald Knuth — Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm
- Wladimir Peter Köppen — Köppen climate classification
- Gerard Kuiper — Kuiper Belt
L–Z
An asterisk designates people who became eponyms despite their stated wishes not to.