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You mean a back-formation. "Warf" as "warehouse at river front" is a backronym, it totally has the same feeling as those other famous nonsense backronyms like "fornication under consent of king" or "port out starboard home".

...except that "wharf" has an 'h' in it, so it's not even a backronym.

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Yes, a back-formation of the sur-name “Warf” into an acronym for “warehouse…” Is it known if the buildings were never owned by or associated with someone or a family named “Warf?”

Warf was a typo. The Warehouses are called Wharf.

Oh, ok, my next conjecture would have been the involvement of a Star Trek TNG aficionado. (Albeit with an o->a typo)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worf

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