Frank Zappa in Popular Culture - Things Named After Zappa

Things Named After Zappa

In the 1980s, biologist Ed Murdy named a genus of gobiid fishes of New Guinea Zappa after Zappa, stating that he liked "his music... his politics and principles" and that "the name itself is a good one for scientific nomenclature."

Biologist Ferdinando Boero named a phialellid jellyfish Phialella zappai in order to get the chance to meet the musician. A Zappa concert in Genoa focused largely on the jellyfish and on Dr. Boero. A small portion of this concert was released on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore: Vol. 6 as "Lonesome Cowboy Nando". Zappa stated, "There is nothing I'd like better than to have a jellyfish named after me."

Other species named after Zappa include a fossil snail named Amaurotoma zappa and the Cameroonese spider Pachygnatha zappa, so named because a marking on the female's ventral surface resembles the Zappa mustache. A gene of the bacterium Proteus mirabilis that causes urinary tract infection is named zapA (others are named zapB through zapE).

After his death, an internet campaign to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center led to an asteroid being named in his honor: 3834 Zappafrank, the asteroid having been discovered by Czech astronomers in 1980.

• A playable character from the video game Guilty Gear XX, Zappa, is named after Frank Zappa.
• In late July, 2007, the city of Berlin, at the urging of the MUSIKFABRIK ORWOhaus (musicians community), renamed Street 13 in the Marzahn district (part of the former East Berlin) the "Frank-Zappa-Straße."
• "Frank Zappa and the Mothers" are mentioned in the lyrics of the well known Deep Purple track "Smoke on the Water", which is about the 1971 Montreux, Switzerland fire at a Zappa concert.