Namesake is a term used to characterize a person, place, thing, quality, action, state, or idea that has the same, or a similar, name to another.

In the United States, the term is often used for a person or thing actually named after, rather than merely sharing the name of another. For example, if a person, place, or thing is named after another person, place, or thing, then the name target is said to be the namesake of the name source. The earliest use reported in the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1635. Dictionaries suggest that the word probably comes from "name's sake", "for one's name('s) sake", for "name sake".

The term namesake was first recorded in 1635, referring to a place with the same name as another. Among other recordings, a 1646 usage was carried through in an 1806 publication, entitled A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language. Modern-day usage has expanded to several uses for the term.

Using a namesake's name is a relatively common practice in naming children that has given rise to the large number of "Jr.", "III", and other name suffixes. Namesakes are often used in tribute to older, related persons, such as grandparents. Use of a namesake's name in a leadership position may indicate certain things, usually referring to certain traits of the namesake, such as in the use of papal regnal names.

Mary Marg Helgenberger (born November 16, 1958) is an American film and television actress known for her roles as Catherine Willows in the CBS drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and as K.C. Koloski in the ABC drama China Beach, which earned her the 1990 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

Marg (pronounced with a hard "G", unlike the name Marge) Helgenberger was born in Fremont, Nebraska and was raised in North Bend, Nebraska. Marg graduated from North Bend Central High School. She is the daughter of Mary Kay (née Bolte), a nurse, and Hugh Helgenberger, a meat inspector. She is of Irish and German descent and had a Roman Catholic upbringing. Marg has one older sister named Ann and a younger brother named Curt. One of her first jobs, as a teenager, was spending her summers and her Christmas breaks working as a "deboner" at the meat packing plant where her father was employed. Helgenberger played the French horn in her high school (North Bend Central High School) marching band. Until she went to college, Helgenberger wanted to be a nurse like her mother. Marg attended Kearney State College (now the University of Nebraska at Kearney) in Kearney, Neb., then attended Northwestern University's School of Speech in Evanston, Illinois (now the School of Communication) and earned a B.S. degree in Speech and Drama.

Stephen Joseph Harper, PC MP (born April 30, 1959) is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election. He is the first prime minister from the newly reconstituted Conservative Party, following a merger of the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties.

Harper has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Calgary Southwest in Alberta since 2002. Earlier, from 1993 to 1997, he was the MP for Calgary West. He was one of the founding members of the Reform Party, but did not seek re-election, and instead joined, and shortly thereafter led, the National Citizens Coalition. In 2002, he succeeded Stockwell Day as leader of the Canadian Alliance (the successor to the Reform Party) and returned to parliament as Leader of the Opposition. In 2003, he reached an agreement with Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay for the merger of their two parties to form the Conservative Party of Canada. He was elected as the party's first non-interim leader in March 2004.

Peyton Williams Manning (born March 24, 1976) is an American football quarterback for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). He played for the Indianapolis Colts for 14 seasons from 1998–2011. He is the son of former NFL quarterback Archie Manning and an elder brother of New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning.

Manning played college football at the University of Tennessee, leading the Volunteers to the 1997 SEC Championship in his senior season. He was chosen by the Indianapolis Colts with the first overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft. From 1998 to 2010, he led the Colts to seven AFC South division championships, two AFC championships, and to a Super Bowl championship (Super Bowl XLI). He has won a record four league most valuable player awards, was the most valuable player of Super Bowl XLI, has been named to eleven Pro Bowls, has eleven 4,000-yard passing seasons (including a record six straight), and is the Indianapolis Colts' all-time leader in passing yards (54,828) and touchdown passes (399). In 2009, he was named the best player in the NFL and Fox Sports along with Sports Illustrated named him the NFL player of the decade of the 2000s.

Peter Denis Sutherland, KCMG, SC (born 25 April 1946) is an Irish international businessman and former Attorney General of Ireland, associated with the Fine Gael party (part of the European People's Party bloc). He is a barrister by profession, and is also Senior Counsel at the Irish Bar. He is also known for serving in a variety of business and political roles.

UCD's law school is to be named the Sutherland School of Law following the completion of its rebuild in 2012. He is a chairman of Goldman Sachs International.

Son of the late William "Billy" Sutherland, an insurance broker, Peter Sutherland was educated at Gonzaga College, a Jesuit day school in Dublin and then studied law at University College Dublin. He played prop forward for the UCD rugby team and was club captain, a role he later filled at Landsdowne Football Club, before retiring from the sport in his mid-20s. He remains an active member of Lansdowne F.C.

After UCD, he studied at the King's Inns in Dublin and was called to the Bar in 1969. At the 1973 Irish general election, he stood as a Fine Gael candidate in the Dublin North–West constituency. He received 1,969 votes (6.2%) but was not elected. In 1981, aged 34, he became the youngest Attorney General of Ireland. He served under two Governments led by Garret FitzGerald. He also advised the FitzGerald government on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland which introduced a constitutional ban on abortion, though Sutherland opposed the wording on grounds that it was ambiguous and unclear.