Any president can have a city or school named after them. But how about a toy, cartoon, food or rapper?
Every president has schools, streets and probably counties named after them. (Even Andrew Johnson.) But really, that’s boring. Once you’re president, (I assume) you want something unique named after you; something no other president can claim. Things like the Hoover Dam, Obamacare, Reaganomics — and the things on the list below.
Here are 11 strange, random, and/or one-of-a-kind items, people and characters named after former U.S. presidents.
1 | Lincoln Logs – named after Abraham Lincoln
I feel like Lincoln really rode that whole “log cabin” bit awfully hard. It’s like, we get it, you come from humble beginnings and now you wear a giant hat. Loud and clear.
2 | Garfield the Cat – named after James Garfield
I looked up whether James Garfield was assassinated on a Monday. (Sadly, for the sake of cosmic synergy, he wasn’t. It was a Saturday. And there’s no word on his feelings toward lasagna.)
3 | Teddy bears – named after Teddy Roosevelt
After the success of the teddy bear, a company tried to capitalize when William Howard Taft took office with a stuffed animal called the Billy Possum (pictured above). Weirdly, it didn’t catch on.
4 | Girls being named Madison – named after James Madison
The connection between James Madison and the name Madison is indirect but indisputable. Madison Avenue in New York is named after James Madison. In the movie Splash, Daryl Hannah chooses the name “Madison” from that street sign. That moment established “Madison” as a viable name — even though Tom Hanks immediately responds, “Madison’s not a name” — and it went on to become insanely popular over the next few decades.
5 | Dead Kennedys – named after JFK
I could’ve gone with the Kennedy Center Honors, Kennedy Space Center, or Kennedy from MTV, but I felt like a provocatively-named punk band was the most appropriate fit for this list.
6 | Milhouse from The Simpsons – named after Richard Milhous Nixon
Matt Groening says he used Richard Nixon’s infamous middle name for the Milhouse character because it was the “most unfortunate name [he] could think of for a kid.” Later in the series, it would be revealed that Milhouse’s middle name was the nearly-as-unfortunate “Mussolini.” Neither of those names is coming up Milhouse.
7 | Coolidge effect – named after Calvin Coolidge
The Coolidge effect is a biological phenomenon where, in layman’s terms, it’s easier for a man to get “recharged” after sex and ready to go again if he has the opportunity to have sex with a different woman. It’s not named after Calvin Coolidge because he held White House key parties or anything quite that salacious. It’s because of an old anecdote about Calvin and Grace Coolidge:
It seems that, during a visit to a large chicken farm, the president fell somewhat behind his wife. As the story goes: “Mrs. Coolidge, observing the vigor with which one particularly promising rooster covered hen after hen, asked the guide to make certain that the President took note of the rooster’s behavior. When President Coolidge got to the hen yard, the rooster was pointed out and his exploits recounted by the guide, who added that Mrs. Coolidge had requested that the President be made aware of the rooster’s prowess. The President reflected for a moment, and replied, ‘Tell Mrs. Coolidge that there is more than one hen.’
And then they took a trip to Hedonism II.
8 | OK – named after Martin “Old Kinderhook” Van Buren
Frankly this one is WAY too “something you learn in 10th grade U.S. history class” for my tastes. But I went with it because I thought my real pick for something named after Martin Van Buren — the Van Buren Boys (if they ever come at you, hold up eight fingers) — was too obscure.
9 | Mike and Ikes – named after Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower
The prevailing theory is that Mike and Ikes were named after Dwight Eisenhower, who was an American war hero when the candy was introduced. Because, definitively, there weren’t people named Mike and/or Ike behind the candy. They’re in that Mr. Peanut / Cap’n Crunch / Poppin’ Fresh zone.
10 | Mallard Fillmore – named after Millard Fillmore
Mallard Fillmore is a newspaper comic strip that’s been running since 1994. Mallard is a duck who works as a conservative TV reporter. The name is a slightly better pick than Ulizard S. Grant, James Blueheron, Woodpecker Wilson or Chester A. Aardvark.
11 | Warren G – (possibly) named after Warren G. Harding
Where rhythm is life, and life is rhythm.