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Naming a virus is an important task, and for this purpose scientists can find inspiration in many details about the new organism. As for the Ebola virus, its name was derived from that of a river near which the virus was first discovered.
Naming a virus is not an exact science. Some viruses are actually named after places, others after how they appeared, still others for the symptoms they produce in patients, or after the form of the virus. This is particularly the case with the coronavirus which was named so because of its virions which make it look like a crown. Some viruses are only assigned a seemingly indescribable combination of letters and numbers. When it comes to the Ebola virus, those who named it chose to take inspiration from where it was first discovered.
Indeed, the virus takes its name from a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it was first discovered in 1976, when the country was known as Zaire. It was a young Belgian scientist named Peter Piot who found the virus, and so he was given the honor of naming the virus. His choice fell on the Ebola River. Normally, the virus should have been named after the village of Yambuku, the exact spot where the disease first wreaked havoc. But the scientists decided it was not a suitable choice, as it would have stigmatized the village and its inhabitants. The choice was therefore rather random on the Ebola river, reported Live Science.
Besides Ebola, West Nile virus, Coxsackie virus, Marburg virus, and Hendra virus are all viruses whose names were inspired by a place.
