Interesting, so the Denisovans might have been called something else if they had only looked at this?
This is actually common situation. If you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Neanderthal_fossils, the first Neanderthal fossil found was Engis 2 in 1829. The namesake fossil Neanderthal 1 was found in the Neandertal valley in 1856. It is just that Engis 2 was found but not recognized as Neanderthal fossil until 1936.
You have to admit that Denisovan has a nicer ring than more descriptive "Late Pleistocene Pan Asian Hominid"!
Pleistocene = “most new” in Greek.
pan- = “all” in Greek.
Asia = “northwest Anatolia” in Hittite.
Hominid = “human-looking” in Latin/Greek mashup.
I love - or am practically obsessed with - etymologies, but an etymology is the linguistic equivalent of of a fossil.
Much as evolution reused terrestrial therapod dinosaur feathers for flight in their bird descendants, language creates new meanings and concepts by reusing older ones. And thankfully we don't communicate in etymologies.
Naming this sketchily understood category of ancient people after some cave in Russia (itself named after one Denis, an 18th century religious separatist hermit who lived there by himself) is only obscure at the start. As we become familiar with the name “Denisovan” it becomes a fine description, whether or not we know or care about Denis or his cave.