I think we already have a term for this category – ‘paragon name’ (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9mGxBZsodzMC&pg=PA363&lpg=PA363&dq=%22paragon+name%22&source=bl&ots=Sndcg9MzCX&sig=ACfU3U0UIudI5-PkCK3RgYmiIDJVLmFt_A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikkI-lv8DsAhUXQkEAHZnPB_wQ6AEwCXoECAoQAg#v=onepage&q=%22paragon%20name%22&f=false). If I have carried over the meaning correctly, then the general linguistic examples – ‘Lope de Vega was the Spanish Shakespeare’ – will apply to the toponymic spectrum in which the local lockup is conceived as ‘our answer to Bridewell’, then as ‘our Bridewell’, then ‘Bridewell’.

It's easier to remember what a naturalised English loanword like paragon is than what a Greek formation like epitoponym (more accurately, epitopotoponym) might be. These hellenoneologisms don’t stick in the memory; when some chap invented spaeristike, nobody took any notice, but as soon as he called it lawn tennis, sales racketed.

Jeremy Harte

At the SNSBI Online Conference yesterday, Paul Tempan spoke about names in Ireland transferred on the basis of function (e.g. Smithfield and Mansion House - both apparently from London.) The question arose of the appropriate term for these, and the use of "epotoponym" (from the UNGEGN Glossary of Terms for the Standardization of Geographical Names - where the definition is somewhat unsatisfactory.)

Oliver Padel objected on the not unreasonable grounds that the "o" of eponym comes from "-onym" - "epi" rather than "epos". Would "epitoponym" be preferable, or should we go for topoeponym?

John Briggs