bourbon

Bourbon whiskey takes its name from Bourbon County, Kentucky, possibly with an assist from Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Both places were named after the French Bourbon dynasty, which took its name from the lordship of Bourbon l'Archambault.

The word moved from a royal house's name, to a French town and lordship, to American place names honoring that dynasty, and finally to the whiskey distilled in one of those places.

The town Bourbon l'Archambault was named for Borvo, a Celtic deity of hot springs, from Proto-Celtic *borvo ("froth, foam") — making 'bourbon' a distant linguistic cousin of that watery, frothing root.