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Comment by JKCalhoun | Hacker News Reader

You might think Morgan Hill, California was named because of a prominent feature of the landscape. Nope, named after a guy named Morgan Hill.

(And the hill you see in Morgan Hill, CA is actually named El Toro — the Spanish word for "lawnmower". Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here for one more night.)

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One might think that Menlo Park, California was founded after the one made famous by Edison in New Jersey, but amazingly it's the other way around.

Via Wikipedia:

In 1876, Thomas Edison set up his home and research laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, at the time an unsuccessful real estate development named after the town of Menlo Park, California.

Years later, part of Menlo Park, NJ was renamed “Edison, NJ” in honor of Thomas Edison.

Ofc, California didn’t adopt a similar change.

Edison also had a winter home in Orlando, Florida. And Orlando was NOT founded by George Boole, despite containing both substrings "or" and "and" (but not "not").

What is the relationship between the word "toro" (bull in Spanish) and lawnmowers?

This site [1] claims to be a Spanish dictionary and it doesn't agree, it claims the word is "la cortadora de césped".

I guess it's possible that the word has become a generic trademark [2] like Kleenex, since of course (?) Toro [3] is a brand of lawnmowers and other equipment.

Edit: switching Toro's site to Spanish [4] shows that they at least use the term consistent with [1], which seems to add credibility. :)

[1]: https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/lawnmower

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark

[3]: https://www.toro.com/en

[4]: https://www.toro.com/es-es/homeowner/walk-behind-mowers

Spanish and English usually merge in fun, unpredictable ways. In certain parts of Andalusia people refer to electrical drills as "el guarrito" (the little pig). Turns out it's because there was a drill brand called "Warrington", hence the mix.

Nice, that would be a plausible explanation.

Just for fun, here's the definition of "toro" in Spanish-speaking countries [1]:

- Bull. - Strong, well-built man. - Forklift. - (In plural) Bullfight.

- Trim (as in a trim part of a car bodywork). - Torus.

[1] https://dle.rae.es/toro

Sounds to me like a joke. As in: bulls eat grass.

> El Toro — the Spanish word for "lawnmower"

Not even close!

They're just being cheeky. Toro is also a brand of lawnmower.

My mother's family has lived in Morgan Hill for over a century, and I've been there often. It always bothered me when I was a little boy that El Toro was not in fact called "Morgan Hill", and that none of the local hills were Morgan Hill.

I thought the lawnmower's Spanish name was "Jesus"?

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