An ananym is a word whose spelling is derived by reversing the spelling of another word. It is therefore a special type of anagram. There is a long history of names being coined as ananyms of existing words or names for entities related to the thing named by the ananym.
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| Ananym | Derived from | Explanation | Type | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20461 Dioretsa | asteroid | asteroid with retrograde orbit | astronomy | |
| Livic | civil (engineering) | trade newspaper, "a reflection of Civil Engineering" | work | |
| Rekkof Aircraft | Fokker | Rekkof aircraft are based on Fokker designs | business | |
| yrneh | henry | A unit of measurement for reciprocal electrical inductance. | electricity | |
| daraf | farad | a unit of elastance equal to the reciprocal farad. | electricity | |
| mho | ohm | A unit of electrical conductance which is the reciprocal of an ohm. Now known by its official SI name "siemens" although mho is still sometimes used. | electricity | |
| Trebor | Robert | Source of the names of Trebor confectionery, Robert Trebor, and probably Trebor the composer | name (alias) and product | |
| Trebor and Werdna | Robert [Woodhead] and Andrew [C. Greenberg] | Characters in Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord computer game named after its programmers. | work | |
| Seltaeb | Beatles | Beatles' merchandising company | business | |
| Llareggub | "bugger all" | In Under Milk Wood | work | |
| Harpo Productions | Oprah (Winfrey) | Oprah's media company | business | |
| Senim Silla | "all is mines" | "mines" is AAVE for "mine". | name (alias) | [1] |
| Navi | (Virgil) Ivan (Grissom) | Apollo program joke by Grissom | astronomy | [2] |
| Dnoces | (Edward H. White the) Second | Apollo program joke by Grissom | astronomy | [2] |
| Regor | Roger (Chaffee) | Apollo program joke by Grissom | astronomy | [2] |
| Erewhon | "nowhere" | A utopia. The digraph <wh> is not reversed. Many names within the book are also ananyms. | work | [3] |
| elgooG | reverse-spelling search engine | business | ||
| Xallarap | parallax | Converse microlensing effect | term | |
| Ebbot (Lundberg) | Tobbe | Tobbe is the usual hypocoristic of Torbjörn, his real given name. | name (alias) | |
| 로꾸거 (Rokuko) | 거꾸로 (gokkuro) | Backwards for Korean for "backwards" | work | |
| semordnilap | palindrome | A semi-palindrome | term | |
| Xvid | DivX | A competitor | product | |
| Trugoy (The Dove) | yogurt | He likes yogurt | name (alias) | |
| Posdnuos | "Sound-Sop" | High school DJing nickname | name (alias) | |
| MAPS (Mail Abuse Prevention System) | spam | reverse backronym | product | |
| Alucard | Dracula | Borne by various characters derived from Dracula | work | |
| Nimda | admin | The computer worm assumed admin-like powers. | product | |
| Nogard | Dragon | Character in Alan F. Beck art series The Adventures of Nogard & Jackpot | name | [4] |
| Emirp | Prime | An emirp is a prime number that results in a different prime when its digits are reversed. | term | |
| (Coquitlam) Adanac(s) | Canada | Team is Canadian | organization | |
| Nujabes | Jun Seba | His real name | name (alias) | |
| Essiac | Rene Caisse | Its inventor | product | |
| "Revilo" | Oliver Christianson | His real name | name (alias) | |
| Adanac(, Nipissing District, Ontario) | Canada | Location | placename | |
| "Airegin" | Nigeria | Composer Sonny Rollins is African American | work | |
| Yarg | (Allan and Jenny) Gray | Couple who provided the recipe | product | |
| Soma Records | Amos Heilicher | Owner | business | |
| Nomad (band) | Damon (Rochefort) | Founder member | organization | |
| Gnip Gnop | ping pong | Reminiscent of the other tabletop game | product | |
| Trebloc, Mississippi | Colbert | Local family, whose name is found in many places; the reversal was "to avoid further repetition". | placename | [5] |
| "Nagirroc" | Corrigan | Owner's surname | placename | |
| Strebor | Roberts | Founder/owner? | business | |
| Ridan (horse) | Nadir | Named after another horse | name (animal) | |
| Niloak Pottery | kaolin | Material used in products | business | |
| Rellim Farm | (Paul) Miller | Founder | business | |
| Yellek, Ontario | (R. J.) Kelley | Trainmaster at the passing point | placename | |
| Nomar (Garciaparra) | Ramon | His father's name | name | |
| OAT (organizing autonomous telecomms) | TAO (The Anarchy Organization) | reverse backronym of its former name | organization | |
| Kroz | Zork | Homage to older computer game | product | |
| Ani Lorak | Karolina | Her real forename | name (alias) | |
| Sevas Tra | "art saves" | work | ||
| Azed | (Diego) Deza | Crossword compiler named after Spanish inquisitor | name (alias) | [6] |
| Tesremos | (Derrick) Somerset (Macnutt) | His middle name | name (alias) | [7] |
| Sualocin | Nicolaus (Venator) | Niccolò Cacciatore's name (~Nicholas Hunter) Latinized and reversed | astronomy | [8] |
| Rotanev | (Nicolaus) Venator | Niccolò Cacciatore's name (~Nicholas Hunter) Latinized and reversed | astronomy | [8] |
| Senrab (F.C.) | Barnes | After Senrab Street, after Barnes Street | organization | |
| (Neuchâtel) Xamax | Max (Abegglen) | Founder, backwards and forwards | organization | |
| C. W. Ceram | K. W. Marek | Surname Latinised and reversed | name (alias) | [9] |
| Allerednic | Cinderella | A "riches to rags" tale as opposed to Cinderella's rags to riches. Used by Jonathan Gershuny of high-achieving women whose careers stall after marriage. [10] | term | |
| Llamedos | sod 'em all | in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels (modelled on Llaregub) | placename | [11] |
| Nevaeh | Heaven | feminine name | name | |
| Гярб вечнълс (Giarb vechnals) | Слънчев бряг (Slanchev briag, "Sunny Beach") | Bulgarian alphabet ananym | placename | |
| Namyats | [Sam] Stayman | Bridge convention invented by Stayman, who also invented the Stayman convention. | term | [12] |
| Adaven | Nevada | ghost town | placename | |
| Etnaviv | Vivante | open-source driver for Vivante GPU | product | |
| Lima | Mali | open-source driver for ARM Mali GPU | product | |
| Namor | Roman | Comic book character whose creator wrote down noble-sounding names backwards and thought Roman/Namor looked the best | name | |
| Eivets Rednow | Stevie Wonder | Music album named from its artist | work | |
| Yen Sid | Disney | The powerful sorcerer in Fantasia (1940), whose apprentice Mickey Mouse causes mayhem after borrowing his master's hat. | name | [13] |
|title= (help); Langdon, Julia (13 August 2000). "Cherie Booth: Now you see her, now you don't". The Independent. Retrieved 23 April 2019.; Hay, Hannah Furness (31 May 2013). "Hay Festival 2013: Working women are Cinderella in reverse" . Retrieved 23 April 2019.
An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase, typically using all the original letters exactly once. For example, the word anagram can be rearranged into nag a ram, or the word binary into brainy or the word adobe into abode.
Lucifer is the name of various mythological and religious figures associated with the planet Venus. Due to the unique movements and discontinuous appearances of Venus in the sky, mythology surrounding these figures often involved a fall from the heavens to earth or the underworld. Interpretations of a similar term in the Hebrew Bible, translated in the King James Version as the proper name "Lucifer", led to a Christian tradition of applying the name Lucifer, and its associated stories of a fall from heaven, to Satan, but modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage,, as "morning star" or "shining one" rather than as a proper name, "Lucifer".
A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward as forward, such as madam, racecar. There are also numeric palindromes, including date/time stamps using short digits 11/11/11 11:11 and long digits 02/02/2020. Sentence-length palindromes ignore capitalization, punctuation, and word boundaries.
In the English language, the word nigger is an ethnic slur typically directed at black people, especially African Americans.
Lebam is a census-designated place (CDP) in Pacific County, Washington, United States. The population was 160 at the 2010 census.
Falafel is a deep-fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas, fava beans, or both. Falafel is a traditional Middle Eastern food, commonly served in a pita, which acts as a pocket, or wrapped in a flatbread known as taboon; "falafel" also frequently refers to a wrapped sandwich that is prepared in this way. The falafel balls are topped with salads, pickled vegetables, hot sauce, and drizzled with tahini-based sauces. Falafel balls may also be eaten alone as a snack or served as part of a meze tray.
Xmas is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas. It is sometimes pronounced, but Xmas, and variants such as Xtemass, originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation. The "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Christós, which became Christ in English. The suffix -mas is from the Latin-derived Old English word for Mass.
Folk etymology or reanalysis – sometimes called popular etymology, analogical reformation, or etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reanalyzed as resembling more familiar words or morphemes. Rebracketing is a form of folk etymology in which a word is broken down or "bracketed" into a new set of supposed elements. Back-formation, creating a new word by removing or changing parts of an existing word, is often based on folk etymology.
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED) is an English language dictionary published by the Oxford University Press. The SOED is a two-volume abridgement of the twenty-volume Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.
Trebloc is an unincorporated community in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, United States. It is located at the intersections of Highways 8 and 47, 10.5 mi (16.9 km) southeast of Houston.
Retrop is a small Oklahoma, USA community located on the Washita/Beckham county line. It is located at the southern junction between State Highway 6 and SH-55. Retrop receives its name from the original community which is one mile south and one mile east in Washita County near the Retrop Cemetery. The Retrop Post Office existed from January 12, 1900, until February 28, 1905. The name is a reverse spelling of the surname of the first postmaster, Ira J. Porter.
Trevlac is an unincorporated community in Jackson Township, Brown County, in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Neola is an unincorporated community in northeastern Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States. It lies along West Virginia Route 92 north of the city of White Sulphur Springs. Its elevation is 2,037 feet (621 m).
Rotavele is an unincorporated community in Glenn County, California. It is located on the Southern Pacific Railroad 15 miles (24 km) north of Butte City, at an elevation of 131 feet. The name is the word "elevator" reversed.
Nonnell is an unincorporated community located in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, United States.
Radec is a small unincorporated community in Riverside County, California, United States. Located roughly 15 miles east by southeast of the city of Temecula, the community of Radec is located along Highway 79. Having bought land in the area in 1883, early settler Samuel Tripp set up a post office there. As of 1893–4, a local directory listed the area as growing honey, hay and stock, but also as having "no commercial interest of any kind." A total of 14 people, mainly farmers and beekeepers, plus a laborer and Tripp, are listed in the directory. The County of Riverside owns a small, non-operational cemetery in Radec.
Venus, as one of the brightest objects in the sky, has been known since prehistoric times and has been a major fixture in human culture for as long as records have existed. As such, it has a prominent position in human culture, religion, and myth. It has been made sacred to gods of many cultures, and has been a prime inspiration for writers and poets as the morning star and evening star.
Mahned, also known as Mixons Mill, is an unincorporated community located in Perry County, Mississippi.
