It’s kind of insane how figures like Jesus, Julius Caesar, and the various gods that people believed in are still often used in idioms, slang, and names. Exclaiming “Jesus Christ!” or “Oh my god!” is common in English (and a variety of other languages), even if you aren’t Christian, I’ve heard “by Jove!” (as in Jupiter, the Roman equivalent of Zeus) sometimes used, July and August being named after the Julius and Augustus Caesar, foods like Caesar salads and the Napoleon dessert, the planets being named after Roman deities (or Greek in the case of Uranus), countries and places named after monarchs and explorers, etc.
Being remembered for thousands of years after one dies is kind of insane if you think about it.
Caesar salads
Not to nitpick, but that wasn’t named after JC, but for a bloke named Caesar Cardini in Tijuana, 100+yrs ago. The name even sounds different, with the “C” of the salad guy sounding like a smooth “S,” whilst JC’s name sounded more like “YOO-lee-us KAI-sar” in the Latin of the era.
Oops! I mean, props to the salad guy then!
Wel,l Jesus is still considered much a reality for close to 2 billion believers. and his father’s own name (God) is printed on every single dollar bill printed in the once all-mighty USA… It’s quite close to us and our everyday life, for a ‘remote past’ ;)
As for antique names. Antiquity (arts and philosophers) were at the chore of the Enlightenment (which started in a few (back then very powerful) European countries (including my own, France) when Europe rediscovered Greek and even more so Roman Antiquity. Discovery that shattered all of Europe and then the world, and which itself is at the chore of the scientific, technological and the… educational revolutions that ensued and whose consequences we still benefit to this very instant. To our ancestors, using famous antique names was kind of natural for people that were so admirative of those times. Then it become a cultural heritage.
A bit like to use French words in English (or English words in French) one needs not to be aware of their origin. I mean… Have you ever flirted with someone?
Well, if that wasn’t the case already, now you will know that it comes from the very old French expression ‘conter fleurette’, more or less meaning that one person is talking silly/nice/sweet little things, supposedly to a woman, trying to seduce her (seduce here meaning to get her attention and her interest not to have immediate sex with her… ). BTW, ‘fleurette’ is the French for ‘a small/little flower’. and “conter” is ‘to narrate’, to ‘tell’ (like when one tells a story to a child).
edit: slight adjustments.
helps that the christians and romans basically genocided all the other cultures/religions aroumd, destroying whatever “heretical” texts/sites they could find.
Huh, I thought “By Jove” referred to Jehovah. In any case your post makes an interesting point that I’ve thought about many times myself.
