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Acid reflux? This was curing heartburn before we knew what it was.

Alka Seltzer. Alka-Seltzer® used to be in glass tubes, which were discontinued to reduce costs and eliminate breakage problems, in 1984...Speedy Alka-Seltzer® was originally known as Sparky, but the name was changed by a sales manager, Perry L. Shupert, to reflect that year's promotional theme, "Speedy Relief". The Speedy Alka-Seltzer® character was created at the Wade Ad Agency in 1951. Speedy Alka-Seltzer® is a registered trademark of Bayer Corp.--from alka-seltzer.com

Move over Chore Boy, this scouring pad won the eponym battle.

Brillo Pad & Brillo. According to scripophily.net, "Credit for the commercial success of steel wool must goes Milton Loeb, a lawyer. He was approached by a costume jewellery maker who had come up with a mixture of soap and metal fibres to clean the then newly-fashionable aluminium pans. Loeb set up a company to manufacture the new product in the early part of [the 1900's], thought of the name "Brillo" and the rest is history."

Lip balm is so passe. If Picabo Street uses this, it's good enough for me.

Chapstick & Chap Stick. While the generic term is usually one word, the trademarked word is two. "In the early 1880's, Dr. C. D. Fleet, a Lynchburg, VA. physician and pharmacological tinkerer, invented Chap Stick as a lip balm. It was sold locally, but did not have much success. [Owenership of Chap Stick has changed hands MANY times since then, but] in December, 1989, A. H. Robins, formerly based in Richmond, was acquired by American Home Products Corporation. As might be expected, the product has undergone a number of changes in formula, form and packaging throughout the years." I acquired this info from Lip Balm Anonymous. Honestly.

Forget the hard stuff--my grandmother swore by an aspirin and this eponym after a bad day.

Coke & Cola. Here are some tidbits from heritage.coca-cola.com: John Permberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, was inspired to create a quick cure for headaches. After making his concoction, he took it to Jacob's Pharmacy, where it was combined with carbonated water and sold for 5 cents a glass. Pemberton's bookkeeper named the drink Coca-Cola, and jotted the name in the signature style that became it's trademark. The company was sold to Asa Candler in 1891, and the company produced 10 billion gallons of its syrup during its first century. Since that time, Coca-Cola has become the most consumed soft drink on Planet Earth.

Who knew those things were called large metal trash receptacles?

Dumpster & Dumpsters. Says the The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, a dumpster is "A trademark used for containers designed for receiving, transporting, and dumping waste materials. This trademark often occurs in print in lowercase." If this is news to you, you're not alone. Even Dumpster (the company), is losing the fight. According to enteract.com, "lawyers in charge of protecting the Dumpster trademark are infamous in media circles for sending friendly letters of admonishment year after year to reporters and editors whenever news items erroneously refer to a large metal trash receptacle as a Dumpster instead of a dumpster unless it really is a Dumpster."

The A/C's on? I think it needs a little more CFC's (or this eponym).

Freon. "Freon is a trademark used for a variety of nonflammable gaseous or liquid fluorinated hydrocarbons employed primarily as working fluids in refrigeration and air conditioning and as aerosol propellants," says The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language. The trade name Freon® is a registered trademark belonging to E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (DuPont). BTW, freon is destroyinig the ozone layer.

Students can't survive without them.

highlighters. Only one of these is an eponym. Highlighter a respelling of the original brand (Hi-Liter). "The modern fiber tip pen was invented by Yukio Horie of the Tokyo Stationery Company, Japan in 1962. The Avery Dennison Corporation trademarked Hi-Liter® and Marks-A-Lot® in the early '90s. The Hi-Liter® pen, commonly known as a highlighter, is a marking pen which overlays a printed word with a transparent color leaving it legible and emphasized."--from inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpen.htm

This 60's craze had girls (and boys) spinning like Elvis the Pelvis.

Hula-Hoop & Hula Hoop & Hula Hoops & Hula-Hoops. According to about.com, "The hula hoop is an ancient invention - no modern company or inventor can claim that they invented the first hula hoop. However,...Wham-O is the most successful manufacturer of hula hoops in modern times and the company that trademarked the name Hula Hoop® and start[ed] manufacturing the toy out of Marlex in 1958. Twenty million Wham-O hula hoops sold for $1.98 in the first six months."

A hot tub...how quaint. I bought my wife the real thing.

Jacuzzi. According to Jacuzzi.com, the Jacuzzi brothers migrated to California from Italy in the early 1900's. While initially focused on aviation inventions, "Hydrotherapy became a reality in 1956 with the introduction of the J-300, a portable whirlpool pump that was placed free-standing in a bathtub. Initial applications were primarily medical. In 1968 Roy Jacuzzi invented and marketed the first self-contained, fully integrated whirlpool bath by incorporating jets into the sides of the tub. A new industry and era of whirlpool bathing pleasure was born."

We're not talking about Mew's six little ones...this smells a lot worse!

Kitty Litter. The following story is a compilation from several sites: In 1948, a woman was disgusted with the ashes and sand she was using in her kitty's...um...litter box (pardon the anachronism). Fortunately for her, she lived next door to Ed Lowe, who's family invented Fuller's Earth, a clay-based product that absorbed industrial spills. She asked him for advice, and he had just the solution! Fuller's Earth worked so well, she regularly returned. He decided to market the product, and after some initial hesitation from shopkeep owners, soon discovered he had hit the lottery.