Brits among the 'ugliest people in the world'

[Yeekim]

Fair play Dachs, you've convinced me. I was under the false impression that there were at least some academics who supported this origin. I still find it very weird that it was named after his first name (and indeed find the strange aesthetic interest in his first name even more weird) but if actual historians don't think it's weird then I'll go along with that...

Well, first, every rule has exceptions.
Also, while the trend about naming places you described is generally true, take into account that, it was pretty damn unlikely for a commoner to get a place named after himself before the Age of Discoveries anyway, be it by first or last name, so this trend really only developed after that particular naming.

 

[Sofista]

I'm going to be cheeky Dachs, but:

how come when you write about ancient Greeks you always go for the Greek spelling, but call Colombo Columbus?

 

[holy king]

it's latin.

who wants to engange in the big spanish-italian war about who owned columbus?

 

[Shylock]

Self selection bias. People who are beautiful will probably not enter their picture on this site as much as not so attractive people.

 

[Bamspeedy]

One of the articles says that votes from the country of the person submitting their photo is the largest factor, so it could merely be that Brits are more critical of looks (though they themselves are not great looking either), or that more Brits have more spoiler votes such as "I am going to vote everyone ugly no matter what they look like".

Along with other factors, like certain countries thinking or not thinking they are 'beautiful' affecting who actually submits photos, and some countries have a higher or lower percent of submissions that are professional photographs vs. camera phone/webcam shots.)

 

[Dachs]

I'm going to be cheeky Dachs, but:

how come when you write about ancient Greeks you always go for the Greek spelling, but call Colombo Columbus?

Because I haven't got a clue as to what his real name was. Cristobal Colon? Xpo Ferens? Cristoforo Colombo? Ah hell.

Though I like Xpo for obvious reasons.