It’s a curious word, eponymous, with its usage and meaning often slightly misunderstood. Roseanne, Yes, Asperger, and Christian Dior: these are all eponymous names — of a TV show, a record album, an autism spectrum disorder, and a fashion label. What makes them eponymous? They’re all named after the person who founded, created, inspired or discovered them. (And just to confuse matters, those four people are also — by its stricter definition — eponymous.)

So it’s correct to call it “Roseanne’s eponymous show”, or “Yes’s eponymous album”.

But here’s the rub: the show and album are eponymous only in the context of their namesakes. Once removed from any mention of its rightful owner and possessed by another named person, the object in question quickly loses its right to be called eponymous. Like a faithful puppy, the adjective is loyal to only one person: its namesake.

Using one of the examples above to illustrate the point, let’s take the following sentence: “Hugely popular in the 1990s, Matt Williams’s eponymous sitcom became the most watched US TV show in 1989-90.” Yes, we’re still talking about Roseanne here, but the show can no longer be called eponymous — at least not in that sentence. It is Matt Williams’s show, because he is its creator. And it is eponymous, because it was based on a character created by Roseanne Barr. But because it wasn’t named after Williams, it cannot be called his eponymous show.

Now, here’s another rub. Some would argue, as Philip Corbett did in the New York Times blog After Deadline a few years ago, that “in [its] precise use, an eponym is someone who gives a name to something else, and “eponymous” describes the source of the name, not the receiver.” So, taking our sitcom example a little further, the purists would maintain that only Barr herself is eponymous, but not the sitcom in her name. (The Oxford English Dictionary begs to differ, stating both definitions as legitimate: “(Of a person) giving their name to something; (of a thing) named after a particular person or group”.)

In discussing the adjective that he regards as misused and overused, if not downright pretentious or contrived, Corbett observes that “journalists love it, lured perhaps by its sheen of erudition.” And regarding its misuse, he explains: “What’s more, any highbrow tone we seek by invoking this sonorous Greek derivative is undercut by our loose usage.”

Whether you agree with Corbett’s more precise definition, or the OED‘s more lenient prescription, I think we probably all agree with Corbett’s words of advice when it comes to this problematic and largely misunderstood word:

“There’s a way to say what we mean without using “eponymous” at all. So let’s use it sparingly, and wisely.”

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