Very often a person will just name a variety for him or herself, a family member, winning a contest with it at a local fair, named after the church and on and on. That church one is called Jean's Prize, and I've offered seeds for it in my seed offers here and was so named b'c Jean won so many prizes with it at the church harvest fair.
Maybe this man was originally from Chicago. No way to know, and in many cases more info can be unearthed, as it were, but in this case I don't see that happening.
Let me give you just one recent example.
A Tville member contacted me about a new variety she came across that was just called George's Seeds, or George's, she got more info about it and it turned out that George was the person who brought the seeds from Italy to the US.
So we talked about it quite a bit, via PM and the final name decided on was George's Giant Italian Red and it's being grown out by one of my seed producer folks who gardens in the midwest and if all goes well I'll be offering it in my next seed offer here. And thanks to Tam here at Tville for that one.
I can't tell you how many new ones I've ended up naming, hopefully with a family member, but if not, just having to go on its characteristics.
Neves Azorean Red is another example. I was given seeds for it by a local person who got them from a cousin near Boston, and doing some background sleuthing it turned out that the seeds were originally given to the man who owned Neptunes Harvest by Anthony Neves who had come from the Azores to the US and was trading fruits with the owner for some of the Neptune fish and seaweed products,
Instead of naming it myself I decided to let others know how difficult it can be to name a variety. So I started a thread at GW back in 2003 or so and gave all the background info I had and let them make suggestions. There were 22 folks who responded and the final name we decided on was Neves Azorean Red.
And I sent seeds to all 22 who participated in that thread.
http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/w...es_Azorean_Red
Carolyn