cologne

The scented oil cologne is a genericized trademark, named after the fragrance Eau de Cologne, first sold by Italian-German perfumier Giovanni Maria Farina in 1709. Farina’s perfume was citrusy and renowned for being consistently homogeneous. Its fame was such that it was referred to as aqua mirabilis (Latin for “miracle water”) among European nobility, and it cost six months of a clerk’s salary per bottle. When France conquered Cologne as part of the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio, the free trade regime it imposed led to dozens of imitators selling knockoff Eau de Cologne springing up, prompting its genericization.

Farina named Eau de Cologne after his place of residence, the Free Imperial City of Cologne. Rather than a German name like Kölnisch Wasser (Köln is the name of the city in German), he gave it a French name because it was the lingua franca among European nobility at the time. The company he founded in 1709, Johann Maria Farina gegenüber dem Jülichs-Platz GmbH, still exists and manufactures cologne today.

The city of Cologne was founded around 50 CE as a Roman colony, named Colōnia Agrippina after the woman who supported its promotion from a military garrison, Nero’s mother Julia Agrippina. Ironically, in every language except Latin, over the millennia the “Agrippina” portion of the name was dropped, leaving just Colōnia/Cologne/Köln, Latin for “colony”.

The Latin word colōnia comes from colōnus, meaning colonist or farmer, which in turn comes from colō, meaning to cultivate or till. Colō has been reconstructed to descend from Proto-Indo-European kʷelh₁ some 6000 years ago, meaning to turn, revolve, or dwell. Other words that descend from kʷelh₁ include Greek τέλος (télos) and English wheel.