meaning of the phrase "name over"?

Question

It is from Crash Course Biology. It is at 1 minute and 37 second. Here is the context:

Because coal is made out of carbon, so they named the epoch of geological history over how face-meltingly intense and productive these forests were.

Does it mean the same as name after? Could you please rephrase the sentence for me?

Answer 1

I think that "name after" is slightly different from "name over" because when I hear "name after" I tend to think that the two things share the same name. For instance,

I named my son after Freddie Mercury.

In this example, you could not use "name over".

So, "name over" shows not exactly the thing by which it was named, but more the idea by which it was named.

It's also worth noting that "name over" can be used interchangeably with "name for."

Answer 2

"Named over" isn't a fixed phrase in English, the way "named after" and "named for" are.

"Over" means "pertaining to [some subject]", so you see uses like

There was a scandal over Trump's alleged use of the n-word.

The writer is using "over" in that sense, but it's not idiomatic.

Answer 3

This "named...over" is a mistake for "named after"/"named for".

British English prefers "named after"; American English prefers "named for".

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=was+named+after%2Cwas+named+for%2Cwas+named+over&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cwas%20named%20after%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cwas%20named%20for%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cwas%20named%20over%3B%2Cc0