Tesla's Name

Tesla is a pretty unique name. It should be more of a household word than it is. Amongst electricians, it's a unit of magnetic flux density. Tesla Motors I think is doing a great job with paying their respects, since they are pretty much poised to become a major electric car manufacturer in the next decade.

Having never married or had any children, Tesla didn't pass along his family's name. His nephew, Sava Kasanovic (sp) I believe was his closest family relation. But in Prodigal Genius (see previous post), John J. O'Neill explains a bit of the history:

"Tesla's surname dates back more than two and a half centuries. Before that time the family name was Draganic (pronounced as if spelled Drag'-a-nitch). The name Tesla (pronounced as spelled, with equal emphasis on both syllables), in a purely literal sense, is a trade name like Smith, firight or Carpenter. As a common noun it describes a woodworking tool which, in English, is called an adz. This is an axe with a broad cutting blade at right angles to the handle, instead of parallel as in the more familiar form. It is used in cutting large tree trunks into squared timbers. In the Serbo-Croat language, the name of the tool is tesla. There is a tradition in the Draganic family that the members of one branch were given the nickname "Tesla" because of an inherited trait which caused practically all of them to have very large, broad and protruding front teeth which greatly resembled the triangular blade of the adz."

I thought that was cool because I've never heard the name anywhere else, until this morning in the Georgia Straight there was a listing for an event and the contact person's last name was Tesla.