antonomasia

What's in a name? When it comes to "antonomasia," quite a bit. English speakers picked up that appellative term from Latin, but it traces back to Greek, descending from the verb antonomazein, meaning "to call by a new name," which itself developed from the Greek noun onoma, meaning "name." You may already be familiar with some other English "onoma" descendants, such as "onomatopoeia" (the naming of something in imitation of the sound associated with it), "polyonymous" (having multiple names), and "toponymy" (the place-names of a region). "Antonomasia" has been naming names in English since the mid-16th century.