So what could be a bigger honor than getting a big obvious thing named after yourself? Important people who have done important stuff tend to have a lot of things named after themselves.
And of course, this is going to appear a lot in fiction. It can show that a person is really famous or important if you see that a school or park has been named after them. If something is named after a character, it can tell you how famous they are or have become among the population. But sometimes this can tell you more about the namers than the namee. Maybe they wanted to get on the good side of a famous person. Maybe it shows some Skewed Priorities if they name it after a person who is not that famous or relevant.
Or it can even tell you something about the world, what kind of person the population reveres. Or sometimes it can just be a nice Shout-Out or gag the writers added to honor someone they consider important. A good name can tell you a lot indeed.
Of course, since famous people exist, and naming stuff after them is common, there must be some connection or Shout-Out about the name, and not just be a place that happens to be named after someone.
Compare Egopolis, where an egotistical character names a city after themselves, and Named After Somebody Famous, when a character is the one named after somone famous.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Even long after the death of two-time JoJo sidekick Robert E. O. Speedwagon, his influence can still be felt throughout the entirety of parts 1-6 through the Speedwagon Foundation, a seemingly omnidisciplinary organization which frequently assists the JoJos across their adventures.
Comic Books
- The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: The Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology was named after Jhiaxus, Cybertron's chief scientist in the days of Nova Prime's administration. As Jhiaxus turned out to be an amoral Mad Scientist who built unethical weapons and did horrible experiments to people on the side, people tend to just call it the J.A.A.T. or omit the "Jhiaxian" part of the name. The Academy was founded by Jhiaxus's protégée, Shockwave, who was trying to rehabilitate his image.
Films — Animation
- In Meet the Robinsons, the gymnasium where the science fair takes place is called "Joyce William auditorium" as a Mythology Gag since the source material was a book by William Joyce.
- Monsters, Inc.: Mike Wazowski takes Celia on a date to Harryhausen's, an upscale sushi restaurant. The place is named in honor of Ray Harryhausen, a stop-motion animation pioneer that gave audiences Jason and the Argonauts among others.
Films — Live-Action
- At the end of Interstellar, Cooper learns that the space station he just woke up in is called "Cooper Station". He thinks it was named after him but the attending doctor notes that it is named after his daughter who saved humanity by solving the gravity equation that allowed humans to leave the dying Earth in vast numbers.
- Reefer Madness: The Musical: The musical satire focuses on the sensationalized dangers of marijuana, as based on the 1936 exploitation film Reefer Madness. As it so happens, the teenagers in this adaptation attend Harry J. Anslinger High School. Harry J. Anslinger
is the sole figure popularly credited (or blamed) for the criminalization of marijuana in the United States. It's also a funny play on the word "high," which is also used as a slang term for somebody under the influence of drugs—a high school named after an anti-pot advocate.
- Space Jam: The Looney Tunes' gym is named for Leon Schlesinger, the first producer of the original shorts.
- Star Trek: First Contact: Geordi went to Zefram Cochrane High School, something that the not-yet famous warp engineer Zefram Cochrane, who is reeling from three hundred years of future expectations landing on him without warning on the eve of the experiment that would make him famous, doesn't appreciate learning.
- Zoolander: After several setbacks, Derek Zoolander grows disillusioned with modeling and would rather become a children's teacher. Mugatu tempts Derek to get back into modeling (for his company, of course) by offering to build a school in his honor: the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too. At the end, Derek makes the school a reality, unwieldy name and all, without Mugatu's help.
Literature
- Animorphs: Ax "grows about a size" when he hears he's being hailed from the Dome Ship Elfangor (his dead older brother's name), as there is no higher honor for an Andalite warrior.
- Captain Underpants: George and Harold's school is named Jerome Horwitz Elementary after the real name of Curly Howard from The Three Stooges.
- In The Expanse novel Tiamat's Wrath, Bobbie Draper sacrificing herself is honoured with a significant spaceport being renamed Draper Station.
- The school that My Weird School series primarily takes place in is named "Ella Mentary School", after Ella Mentary, a character in-universe who has made several appearances in the story. This is discussed in one of the books, where the main character AJ wonders why the school wasn't named after someone like Lady Gaga or George Washington.
- Quidditch Through the Ages mentions the "Modesty Rabnott Snidget Reservation", named in honour of the witch who famously disrupted the first Quidditch match at which a Golden Snidget bird was released in 1269, and established at the same time Snidget hunting was banned as an element of the game a century later.
- Whateley Universe: The Jennifer Stevens Playhouse at Whateley Academy is named after a former theater teacher at the school, in-universe, and is an out-of-universe Shout-Out to stories by a webmaster of a site that hosted stories of the series.
- The novelisations of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister have introductions dated from "Hacker College, Oxford", an institution presumably named in honour of the protagonist, Jim Hacker.
Live-Action TV
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: In the Framework arc of Season Four, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are sent to a virtual reality where HYDRA has taken over the world. Phil Coulson becomes a school teacher who works at the "Alexander Pierce High School", named in honor of HYDRA leader Alexander Pierce.
- Abbott Elementary: Series creator Quinta Brunson named the school in her show after one of her own favorite elementary school teachers.
- The Brittas Empire: Played for Laughs in "Not a Good Day..." when Brittas names a new washroom in the leisure centre after real-life Conservative MP Sebastian Coe. He even gets the actual man himself, who is at the centre anyway to shoot a documentary, to come in and do the ribbon cutting for it.
- Eureka: One of the institutes Global Dynamics runs is called the Andre Sandrov Institute, after the Nobel prize winner who made a breakthrough in bioengineering and cryogenics. It turns out his work was actually based on research done by Pierre Fargo, Douglas Fargo's grandfather, who had been stuffed into one of his own cryotubes by a jealous rival. At first, everyone suspects Sandrov, who was Pierre's assistant at the time, but he protests his innocence. After Pierre disappeared, he took his research and was able to complete it. The real culprit turned out to be a guy who was in love with the same girl as Pierre and tried to remove him from the equation. At the end, the institute is renamed in honor of both its benefactors, the Sandrov-Fargo Institute.
- Phil of the Future: Befitting a show about time-travelers, the teens attend H. G. Wells High, Science Fiction author of several books, like The Time Machine.
- In Girl Meets World, Riley's middle school is named after US president John Quincy Adams. This is a call back to the original series, where her father went to John Adams High, US president and father of the aforementioned namesake. And later they graduate and go to Abigail Adams High School (named after John Adams' wife).
- How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast): The school attended by the protagonists is named after Anton Köllisch, who discovered MDMA.
- Moon Knight (2022): In The Stinger of episode 6, Arthur Harrow is committed to Sienkiewicz Psychiatric Hospital, which is named after comic book artist Bill Sienkiewicz. Doubles as a Mythology Gag, since many of the original Moon Knight comics were drawn by Sienkiewicz.
- Reboot The Guardian Code: The Highschool the protagonists attend underneath which is the secret base where they enter the computer world is named Alan Turing High, after real life British WWII code breaker and computer scientist Alan Turing.
- Star Trek: Enterprise: After Captain Archer stopped the Xindi from destroying Earth, one of his colleagues tells him that he has had more schools named after him than anyone since Zefram Cochrane (the inventor of the warp drive).
- Una familia de diez: In the episode when they recount the birth of Justito and Victoria, we see that the hospital they were born in is named "Dr. Cándido Pérez." A Mythology Gag to the series Cándido Pérez from the 90's, both series starring Jorge Ortiz de Pinedo.
Video Games
- Control: A late-game secret area reveals that the power generator in the Oldest House, known as the NSC, is this: It stands for "Northmoor Sarcophagus Container", and contains the burning, but potentially still living, body of former Federal Bureau of Control director Broderick Northmoor, who was a parautilitarian with the ability to generate heat; once he lost control of the ability, he was sealed in the NSC and turned into a living battery.
- Flower Knight Girl: Within Blossom Hill is the knight academy called Phos Knight School, named after the first established Flower Knight from a thousand years ago, and thus the biggest influence of preserving the peace of Spring Garden.
- Halo Infinite: The Avery J. Johnson Academy of Military Science is a training academy for the SPARTAN supersoldiers, named posthumously after Seargent Major Avery Johnson, who died at the end of the Human-Covenant War in Halo 3.
- Honkai: Star Rail: In Penacony, the Oti Mall and Aideen Park are named after 2 famous people in there, Oti Alfalfa (the head of the Alfalfa Family that manages the local economy) and Aideen (the creator of the "Soulglad" soda brand).
- Red Alert 3: One Soviet mission involves taking out the Allies' von Eisling airbase in Iceland, named after the Mission Control general from Red Alert.
- Sea of Thieves: After Golden Sands Outpost was destroyed by the Reapers, the fisherman pirate Merrick led the efforts to rebuild it and fend off further Reaper attacks. The new outpost was renamed Port Merrick in his honor.
- Stellaris: After building a Science Nexus mega-structure (essentially a planet-sized research institute), a Random Event may trigger where one of its researchers, a certain Dr. Groik, invents the Brain Uploading technology and one of your Scientist leaders volunteers to undergo the procedure to permanently merge with the Nexus. If allowed to, the Scientist in question dies, but the Nexus receives a 25% boost in research production and is automatically renamed "The Groik Nexus" in honor of the inventor (perplexingly instead of the Scientist volunteer).
Western Animation
- Batman Beyond: Terry attends Hamilton Hill High School, named after the mayor of Gotham City during Batman: The Animated Series.
- Brand Spanking New Doug: Parodied when the time comes to name the as-of-yet incomplete middle school the kids will be attending. Everyone tries to come up with a cool or catchy name to present to Mr. Bluff, scion of the founding family of Bluffington and the richest man in town, who is also financing the construction. After hearing all the presentations, he decides to name it the Beebee Bluff Middle School, after his daughter. Everyone else is sorely disappointed.
- Danny Phantom: Danny and his friends attend at Casper High School, named after the cartoon character Casper the Friendly Ghost just to fit the ghost theme for the show.
- Fairly OddParents: In "Fairy Fairy Quite Contrary", Timmy aims to get the high score in a VR game at his local arcade, as doing so will earn him a plaque with his name on it on the bathroom door. Remy Buxaplenty then shows up and wipes the floor with Timmy, beating the high score by such a wide margin that the entire arcade is named in his honour.
- Family Guy:
- In "Peter's Got Woods", Brian tries to get James Woods High School renamed after Martin Luther King, Jr. in a blatant attempt to impress his new (black) girlfriend. Peter is opposed to this and brings in James Woods himself to help quash these plans, putting a strain on his and Brian's friendship
- In Season 17, the school was renamed in honor of Adam West, after both Quahog's departed mayor and the man who voiced him.
- In Fugget About It, there are several places named after famous Canadians. Although most of them are celebrities (and celebrities people in the United States are likely to recognize), like Céline Dion Elementary or Wayne Gretzky High.
- Played for Laughs in the Futurama episode "The Cyber House Rules": Bender's subplot throughout the episode has him adopt twelve orphans from the Cookieville Minimum-Security Orphanarium in order to receive government stipends, but after realizing he's operating at a net loss (and a failed attempt to sell them as livestock), he ends up returning them. Due to his "generous gift of twelve orphans and a government check for 1200 wing-wangs", it gets officially renamed to the Bender B. Rodriguez Orphanarium.
- In My Gym Partner's a Monkey, the all-animal school that Adam Lyon attends is called "Charles Darwin Middle School".
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns is named after the near-immortal ruler of the nation it's in.
- Our Friend Martin: The main characters' school is named after Martin Luther King, whom they go back in time to meet and being back to the present. This creates an Alternate Timeline where the Civil Rights Movement never happened, and the first telltale sign is that the school is now named for Robert E. Lee.
- The Replacements: The school Todd and Riley attend was originally "George Washington Middle School". However, in "The Insecurity Guard", when asked who the first president of the United States was, Todd answers "George Stapler" because he looked at a stapler, even though there were loads of pictures of Washington around the room. When the teacher says he's wrong, Todd's security robot threatens her, then she hastily retracts her statement and says that everything Todd says is correct from that point forward. The school has been "George Stapler Middle School" ever since.
- The Simpsons:
- In "Lisa On Ice", the Springfield Elementary School auditorium is named the "Butthead Memorial Auditorium", which leads Principal Skinner to remark, "I wish we hadn't let the students name that one". This was inspired by an incident in Greenwood, South Carolina, where children proposed having a new elementary school named Springfield Elementary School.
- Parts of "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)" take place at the Marvin Monroe Memorial Hospital, named after a psychiatrist who appeared early in the show's run. In a later episode Dr. Monroe is explicitly stated to have died. In a later episode, he's revealed to be alive, but was simply "very sick" for a while.
- South Park: In "Eek, a Penis!", Cartman gets a job teaching at Jim Davis High School, a reference to Garfield High School from Stand and Deliver, which the episode is spoofing (Davis created the comic strip Garfield).
