I never thought of Gerber as being anything other than the name of the most well-known brand of baby food, and very likely the last name of whoever started the company, until I bought some Georgian tea in Germany. That is, tea from the Georgian Republic of what was at the time (1977) the Soviet Union. Georgian tea seemed to be the universially preferred variety in the SU; it's what was served on the trains when I traveled there in 1975. It was brewed with the samovars that were wood heated and present on every train car. I never drank tea until I traveled there and noticed the difference immediately when I returned to the United States. Many people told me Georgian tea has considerably less tannic acid than most kinds and when I saw some tea in Germany advertised as coming from "Grusien" I bought it and found that it was that nice brew I'd swilled by the cup on Russian trains. Then I noticed the label proclaiming "weniger Gerbsäure" and figured "Gerbsäure" must mean "tannic acid". And sure enough, the dictionary confirmed my suspicions.

I love having my suspicions confirmed.

From there it was only a short step to the realization that "Gerber" must mean "tanner", and that the last name "Tanner" was one of the many that were originally the name of a profession. So then I had to wonder how many others there were that I'd never realized what they were, and came up with Cooper, which is just English for Fassbinder. And Fleischer, and that's just Butcher when it's at home, or vice versa.

Imagine my delight when I realized there was a whole group of people I could mention this to who would not only not tell me to get a life, but who would probably be happy to add to the list. Of course, the more languages you have at your disposal the easier it is. Like Goncharov, the Russian author, whose name just happens to mean Potter.