Eponyms for Cities Trivia Quiz

Answer: Moctezuma, Sonora (Mexico)

Known in Nahuatl as Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (an epithet meaning an honoured young one), the ruler of Tenochtitlan between 1502 and 1520 was known in European records as Moctezuma II, with variant spellings including Montezuma. That spelling of his name can be seen in the Costa Rican city named after him; the Mexican one uses Moctezuma.

He was born around 1466, and died in 1520, in the early stages of the conquest of Mexico by Spaniard Hernán Cortés. His death in the Battle of Tenochtitlan, and the subsequent defeat of his people, has led to the portrayal of him in European histories as a weak and indecisive leader.

This is clearly not a fair evaluation, as during his reign the Aztecs extended their domain to its largest extent - he must have been doing something right! Historical records are unclear, and quite contradictory, as they were mostly written by men who had their own personal agenda to promote. What is clear that he invited the Spanish contingent to be his guests in the royal palace, where they stayed for a period of months, in the course of which events led to Moctezuma becoming essentially a prisoner in his own home, culminating in his death.

Answer: Vancouver BC (Canada)

George Vancouver seemed destined for a life at sea, being born in the important seaport town of King's Lynn in Norfolk, UK in the year 1757. At the age of 13 he joined the Royal Navy, and served as a midshipman on James Cook's second and third voyages to the Pacific. In 1790 he was given command of HMS Discovery, and sent to take control of the strategically important Nootka Sound on the Canadian island now named after him. He was additionally charged with exploring and charting the northwest coast of the Americas in the course of his journey, which took place between 1791 and 1795. On the way, he travelled by way of South Africa to the west coast of Australia, where he claimed the area which is now the town of Albany, Western Australia for the British. Next came New Zealand, Tahiti and Hawaii, all of which he surveyed on his way to reaching North America at a spot that is now on the coast of Oregon, from which he headed north. He finished the journey, several years later, by sailing down the west coast of South America and around Cape Horn, then up the Atlantic to the United Kingdom. He died less than three years after completing his voyage.

Vancouver's extensive Pacific travels have led to a number of places being named after him. In addition to the British Columbian island and city, there is the city of Vancouver in the American state of Washington, and two mountains (one in New Zealand, one on the border between Alaska and Yukon). He himself gave the names of his friends and allies to many of the spots he visited, as well as naming a number of them in honour of his ship, Discovery.

Answer: Nelson (New Zealand)

Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB (1758-1805) had a reputation as an excellent tactician and courageous fighter, who suffered a number of serious injuries in the course of battle: in 1794 he lost the sight of his right eye when flying debris struck it; in 1797 he lost his right arm in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife; during the Battle of the Nile in 1798 a shot to his forehead caused a flap of skin to cover his good eye, leading him to fear the worst, but proving to be relatively insignificant. In the 1908 Battle of Copenhagen, he chose to disobey orders he had no intention of following, not the first time this had happened, but the one which was recorded by observers as being attributed by him to his failure to see the instructions due to lack of sight in his right eye - trying to use it to see the semaphore messages proved futile. He was fatally injured by a musket shot during the Battle of Trafalgar, and did not live to see the victory for which his strategy was primarily responsible. His body was famously preserved for the long journey home by being placed in a barrel of brandy while his ship was towed to Gibraltar, where it was transferred to an alcohol-filled lead-lined casket for the rest of the voyage.

The oldest city on New Zealand's South Island, established in 1841, took its name from the hero of Trafalgar, and many of the city's landmarks are named after the people and ships involved in that battle, with the main shopping strip called Trafalgar Street. A number of other towns around the world were named after him, and several cities erected monuments to him. Perhaps the most famous of these is London's Nelson's Column, to be found in Trafalgar Square.

Answer: Bolivar (Peru)

To give him his full name, Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco (1783-1830) is known as the political and military leader who was primarily responsible for removing Spanish sovereignty over a significant portion of South America. The struggle for independence started in 1808, and international recognition of the new countries came in the 1820s. These nations were not yet the modern ones - Bolivar himself presided over Gran Colombia, which covered what is now (roughly) Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, along with the northern part of Peru and the northwest region of Brazil. This entity proved unwieldy, and even before his death had started to dissolve. Bolivar had resigned the Presidency of Gran Colombia and planned to sail for a life of exile in Europe when he died of tuberculosis.

Simón Bolivar is the eponym for two countries (Bolivia and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), and has many cities named after him, as well as more that have a Plaza Bolivar as a central feature of the town's plan. Monuments attesting to his significance in the development of post-colonial South America can be found around the world, in places as diverse as Minsk, Tehran, New Delhi and Paris. New York's Central Park has a statue of him at the Avenue of the Americas entrance.

Answer: Seattle WA (USA)

Seattle is actually an Anglicisation of his name, which was Si'ahl in modern Duwamish script. (The script used in the 19th century used symbols that don't work here.) He has sometimes been referred to as Sealth, Seathl, Seathle and See-ahth, but the city in Washington is named after this version.

He was born sometime in the early 1780s of a Duwamish mother and a Suquamish father, and grew up speaking both languages. From a young age he acquired a reputation as a skilled warrior, but the arrival of white settlers made life difficult for his people.

He converted to Christianity in 1848, and established a friendship with a settler named Doc Maynard, who persuaded the settlers of Duwamp to rename their town in honour of his friend. There is a famous document called Seattle's Letter, a powerful statement of the importance of maintaining peace and caring for the environment, which he is supposed to have sent to the President of the United States in 1855, but which has never been actually located.

It was said to repeat the message of a speech he had made some years earlier, but since that speech was not recorded until nearly 30 years after it happened (if it happened), we have very little evidence for the historical accuracy of the Seattle Letter, which was widely promoted during the second half of the 20th century by environmentalists. (Since Seattle didn't speak, let alone write, English, any written record would have to have been made on his behalf; nearly 100 versions have been located, and the original message probably lies somewhere in there.

Answer: Darwin NT (Australia)

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was struck by his observations of the ways in which populations of the same species which were geographically isolated from each other had developed distinctly different characteristics. He proposed that this was caused by natural selection - those animals or plants whose traits were most suited to their specific environment would flourish and produce more offspring than would be the case for less-suited organisms, leading to the eventual dominance of their traits in the population. His observations did not actually show any of these isolated populations developing into a new species, but it did suggest the possibility that this could happen over time. The process was not terribly controversial when applied to so-called animals and plants, but when he subsequently explored how this could be applied to humans, things got a lot more controversial, to put it mildly.

The Australian city of Darwin was originally called Port Darwin by the mappers of the HMS Beagle in 1839, in honour of Charles Darwin, even though he was not along on this voyage. It was called Palmerston in 1869, then renamed Darwin in 1911. Over the years, the city has been almost totally destroyed and rebuilt four times: three times (1897, 1937 and 1974) by cyclones, and once due to Japanese bombing during World War II.

Answer: Bismarck ND (USA)

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck-Schönhausen, later Prince of Bismarck and Duke of Lauenburg, and usually referred to as Otto von Bismarck, was born into a Junker family, meaning they were landed gentry in Prussia, in 1815. His political career proceeded slowly until he was appointed Minister President of Prussia in 1862, a position which he proceeded to expand by negotiation and war. He formed the North German Confederation in 1867, then added southern parts of Germany to form the German Empire in 1871, at which time he became the first Chancellor of Germany (while still keeping himself in charge of Prussia). He managed to negotiate relative peace in Europe for the rest of his career, but some of his actions, such as the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, were significant contributors to the political instability that led to World War I. He was forced to resign in 1890 by Kaiser Wilhelm II, with whom he had profound political and philosophical differences.

Bismarck's reputation as a strong leader grew during the years of his retirement, during which time many monuments were erected, and a number of places around the world were named in his honour. Some of these were in German colonial areas, but many are just in areas with a large number of people of German origin. In 1873 the north Dakota town of Edwinton was renamed Bismarck in the hope of attracting German immigrants to the area to work on the railroads, as well as possible investment from German capitalists.

Answer: Faisalabad (Pakistan)

In 1977 the Pakistani city of Lyallpur (named after an administrator of the British Raj) was renamed Faisalabad in acknowledgement of the extensive financial support the country had received during its formative years from Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Saudi Arabian king between 1964 and 1975, when he was assassinated by his nephew. Faisal had already achieved a position of political power (foreign minister, later prime minister) while his father King Abdulaziz and later his brother King Saud ruled; he gained the kingship in a coup that was the culmination of a lengthy power struggle between the brothers.

As king, Faisal was known for his policy of modernisation, reforming the country's administrative system, establishing a Ministry of Justice, abolishing slavery, and instituting extensive economic reforms. King Faisal was religiously and culturally more pluralist than previous or subsequent Saudi leaders, accepting not only diverse schools of Islam but also groups from other religions in various regions to practice their faith.

As well as being an advocate of pan-Islamism, he supported the Palestinians in their struggle to regain control of their land.

Answer: Sihanoukville (Cambodia)

Norodom Sihanouk (1922-2012) was at one time listed in the "Guinness Book of Records" as the world leader with the most different titles. He became king of Cambodia in 1941, when the region was still a French Protectorate, and remained in that position during the Japanese occupation in World War II. After Cambodia gained independence in November of 1953, Sihanouk abdicated the throne in 1955 to lead the Sangkum party in elections which led to his becoming Prime Minister. Although there were elections, Cambodia was a one-party state, meaning that it was effectively still a monarchy with a different name. A military coup in 1970 led to the formation of the Khmer Republic (strongly supported by the United States, who considered Sihanouk to be pro-communist), and Sihanouk spent five years in China and North Korea as head of a government-in-exile until the end of the Cambodian Civil War, and the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge, allowed him to return home to the country then renamed Democratic Kampuchea. Friction with Pol Pot led to his resignation of the post of head of state in 1976, which was followed by three years of house arrest until the Khmer Rouge were ousted by forces from Vietnam; this sent him into exile again. As president of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, a collection of anti-Vietnamese groups, he managed to arrange a peace accord with the People's Republic of Kampuchea. Following 1993 elections in which his son became a joint leader of the government, he was reinstated yet again as Cambodia's Head of State and King, a position he abdicated in 2004, when another son was elected by the Royal Council of the Throne of Cambodia (a body established in 1993 as part of the peace agreement) to replace him. The abdication did not mark the end of his active participation in politics, and he remained a vocal commentator until ill health forced him to focus on personal affairs, and seek medical treatment in Beijing, where he remained from 2009 until his death.

Sihanoukville, also known as Kampong Som, is a new city, developed in conjunction with the nearby Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, the country's only deep water port which was started in 1955, shortly before Sihanouk's first abdication. The city therefore has become a major commercial centre; the wonderful beaches nearby have also made it a tourist destination.

Answer: Gagarin (Russia)

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born in 1934 in the Russian village of Klushino, near the town of Gzhatskm, which was renamed Gagarin in 1968 in his honour. On 12 April 1961, he became the first human being to travel in space when he made a single orbit of the Earth, at a height of approximately 170 kilometres, in the spacecraft Vostok I.

The trip took 108 minutes from launch until he landed (having parachuted down after ejecting from the capsule at an altitude of 7 km). As the flight started, he said, "Poyekhali! (Let's go!)", words which are as memorable as those of Neil Armstrong when he became the first human to walk on the moon.

They reflect the persona which Gagarin projected to the world - his infectious smile and enthusiasm made him a popular figure around the world; in the Soviet Union, he became a national hero, with statues erected all over the place, and numerous places (towns, parks, streets, etc.) renamed to honour him. Yuri Gagarin never travelled in space again, although he remained part of the cosmonaut program until the death of his friend Vladimir Komarov (for whom he had been the backup pilot) in Soyuz 1, the first in-flight death of the space age, on 23 April 1967.

In 1968, Gagarin died in a plane crash that occurred during a routine training flight; the cause of the crash has never been definitively determined.