household name

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household name (plural household names)

1. A brand name that is well known to the great majority of households.
2. A genericized trademark.
3. A very well-known public figure.
   • 2020 January 17, Amy Chozick, “This Is the Guy Who’s Taking Away the Likes”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     Instagram has revolutionized shopping, dealt a near-death blow to women’s magazines, taken celebrities from TV and movie screens to our fingertips and made Shih Tzus and personal trainers household names. (At least in some households.)

   • 2025 September 6, Catherine Pearson, “She Started the Debate About Kids and Phones. Now She Wants to End It.”, in The New York Times‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     [Jean] Twenge […] isn’t necessarily a household name like her sometimes collaborator Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and the author of the megahit “The Anxious Generation,” which has spent 75 weeks hovering near the top of the New York Times best-seller list.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

• household word