motorcar brand first marketed 1926 after merger of two earlier companies. The first part of the name, Mercedes, marketed as a car name from 1901, was chosen by Austrian manufacturer Emil Jellinek for his daughter, Mercedes (1889-1929). The Benz is from the other company, from name of Karl Benz, creator of the Benz Patent Motorwagen (1886). The surname is built from a familiar form of Berthold,

Benedict, or Bernhard.

1936, network of defensive fortifications built along the northern and eastern borders of France before World War II, in which the French placed unreasonable confidence, named for André Maginot (1877-1932), French Minister of War under several governments in the late 1920s and early 1930s. After the fall of France in 1940, for the next 40 years or so the phrase was associated with a mental attitude of obsessive reliance on defense.

U.S. presidential retreat near Thurmont, Maryland, built 1939 as Hi-Catoctin, in reference to the name of the mountains around it; it was called Shangri-La by President Franklin Roosevelt, after the mythical hard-to-get-to land in the novel "Lost Horizon;" it was renamed Camp David by President Eisenhower in 1953 for his grandson, born 1947. The Camp David Accords were signed there Sept. 17, 1978.

city in Alaska, founded in the 1898 gold rush and originally Anvil City after the nearby Anvil Creek, it was later renamed for nearby Cape Nome, which, according to one story is from a misreading of a British cartographer's query, ?Name, written beside the peninsula on an 1849 map, and according to another is from a supposed native no-me meaning "I don't know," a plea of noncomprehension when asked what the name of the place was.

in Greek mythology, a queen of Thebes, daughter of Tantalus, married to Amphion, she was changed to a stone while weeping for her numerous children (slain, after she boasted of them overmuch, by Artemis and Apollo); hence the name is used figuratively for bereavement and woe. The name is said to mean literally "snowy; snowy-bright." By scientists the name was given to a type of trilobites and an asteroid. Related: Niobean.

town and railroad stop on the Main Line outside Philadelphia, named 1869 by the Pennsylvania Railroad's executives, Welsh, literally "big hill;" it was the name of the estate near Dolgellau, Merionethshire, Wales, that belonged to Rowland Ellis, one of the original Quaker settlers in the region (1686). Before the change the village was known as Humphreysville, after another early Welsh settler. The women's college there was founded in 1885.

West Indian island, from Taino (Arawakan) xaymaca, said to mean "rich in springs." Columbus when he found it in 1494 named it Santiago, but this did not stick. It belonged to Spain from 1509-1655, and after to Great Britain. Related: Jamaican.

The Jamaica in New York probably is a Delaware (Algonquian) word meaning "beaver pond" altered by influence of the island name.

masc. proper name, from Old North French Willaume, Norman form of French Guillaume, of Germanic origin (cognates: Old High German Willahelm, German Wilhelm), from willio "will" (see will (n.)) + helma "helmet," from Proto-Germanic *helmaz "protective covering" (from PIE root *kel- (1) "to cover, conceal, save;" compare helm (n.2)). After the Conquest, the most popular given name in England until supplanted by John.

1878, type of machine gun named for its inventor, U.S. armaments-maker Benjamin B. Hotchkiss (1826-1885). In Japanese, the word for "stapler" is hotchikisu after the E. H. Hotchkiss Company of Norwalk, Connecticut, U.S., early and prominent manufacturer of staplers (incorporated 1895, name from 1897), which apparently was run by relatives of the gun inventor. The surname (attested from late 15c. as Hochekys) is a variant of Hodgkin.

masc. proper name, from Old North French Hugues, Old French Hue, from a Frankish name meaning "heart, mind," cognate with Old High German Hugi, related to hugu "mind, soul, thought." Very popular after the Conquest (often in Latin form Hugo); the common form was Howe, the nickname form Hudd. Its popularity is attested by the more than 90 modern surnames formed from it, including Hughes, Howe, Hudson, Hewitt, Hutchins.