Currently, the world-famous James Bond films are produced by Barbara Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G. Wilson. It was Broccoli's father, Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli, who was the original producing co-founder of the franchise.
So far, so good. But while many might assume that the Broccoli family was perhaps named after the vegetable, they seem to claim it is the vegetable that is named after them. Last week, writer Dana Schwartz tweeted an excerpt from a 1989 LA Times interview citing Cubby as saying: "I feel like people don't talk enough about how James Bond is controlled by the Broccoli family, of broccoli fame. They're not named after broccoli, broccoli is named after them!!!!!!!!"
In the original article, Cubby says that his father Giovanni, and his brother, immigrated to Long Island from Calabria at the turn of the 20th century. According to Cubby, they were descended from the Broccoli's of Carrera, who first crossed cauliflower and rabe to produce the dark green, thick-stalked vegetable known as 'broccoli.' It was this vegetable that supported them in the US, as Giovanni's brother started a broccoli farm.
While Schwartz's tweet quickly got more than 16,000 likes, many have pointed out that the origin of the vegetable is contested. According to Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary, the word broccoli comes from the Italian plural of broccolo, which means "the flowering crest of a cabbage."
Source: independent.co.uk