Eponymous Entrepreneurs

We demonstrate that firm eponymy—the familiar convention of firms being named after their owners—is linked to superior performance. We propose a novel explanation, referred to as “utility amplification,” and develop a corresponding signaling model. The model generates three main empirical predictions: (1) The incidence of eponymy will be low; (2) Eponymous firms will outperform other firms; (3) These e↵ects will be intensified when the entrepreneur’s name is rare. Using unique data on over 485,000 firms from Europe and the United States, we find support for all of these predictions. Several extensions and robustness checks are considered.