namesake
Americannoun
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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.
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a person or thing having the same name as another.
The cities of Hyderabad, Pakistan, and Hyderabad, India, are namesakes.
noun
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a person or thing named after another
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a person or thing with the same name as another
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.
Gap, which along with Athleta and its namesake stores also owns Old Navy and Banana Republic, described 2026 as a “rebuild year” for Athleta.
From MarketWatch • May 31, 2026
Gap’s namesake brand performed better, with a 10% rise in same-store sales.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 28, 2026
Yardeni Research namesake Ed Yardeni even has a name for the phenomenon: “In our view, today’s economy is not K-shaped but rather G-shaped,” he writes.
From Barron's • May 27, 2026
But Venters said that the brand’s namesake designer is still dead-set on the company remaining a stalwart British brand-not straying too far from its cultural origin.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 21, 2026
From the little he knows about Russian writers, it dismays him that his parents chose the weirdest namesake.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
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.
