Answer: Swede Carl von Linné

Adam

Adam, the Spanish sailor who met the Indians.

It already had a name before it started being called tobacco. Different peoples had different names for it.

So now we’re going even further. I rember reading one Indian myth about how tobacco got it’s name… I don’t know if I find it, but it was from one of the South American Indians.

I know it had names before but linné named it after Jean Nicot

I think you are confusing Nicotine with Tobacco. The term “Tobacco” (or relatives of it) was in use long before Linne was even alive. Linne adopted the term “Nicotiana” from another scientist. Las Casas (b. 1566) vividly described how the first scouts sent by Columbus into the interior of Cuba found men with half-burned wood in their hands and certain herbs to take their smokes, which are some dry herbs put in a certain leaf, also dry, like those the boys make on the day of the Passover of the Holy Ghost; and having lighted one part of it, by the other they suck, absorb, or receive that smoke inside with the breath, by which they become benumbed and almost drunk, and so it is said they do not feel fatigue. These, muskets as we will call them, they call tabacos. I knew Spaniards on this island of Española who were accustomed to take it, and being reprimanded for it, by telling them it was a vice, they replied they were unable to cease using it. I do not know what relish or benefit they found in it. In 1560, Jean Nicot de Villemain brought tobacco seeds and leaves as a “wonder drug” to the French court. In 1586 the botanist Jaques Dalechamps gave the plant the name of Herba nicotiana, which was also adopted by Linné (b. 1707) . It was considered a decorative plant at first, then a panacea, before it became a common snuff and tobacco plant.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tobacco 1580s, from Spanish tabaco, in part from an Arawakan (probably Taino) language of the Caribbean, said to mean “a roll of tobacco leaves” (according to Las Casas, 1552) or “a kind of pipe for smoking tobacco” (according to Oviedo, 1535). Scholars of Caribbean languages lean toward Las Casas’ explanation. But Spanish tabaco (also Italian tabacco) was a name of medicinal herbs from early 15c., from Arabic tabbaq, attested since 9c. as the name of various herbs. So the word may be a European one transferred to an American plant. Cultivation in France began 1556 with an importation of seed by Andre Thevet; introduced in Spain 1558 by Francisco Fernandes. Tobacco Road as a mythical place representative of rural Southern U.S. poverty is from the title of Erskine Caldwell’s 1932 novel.

Nicotiana tabacum L. (Solanaceae). Given its scientific name by Carolus Linnaeus in 1753, from cultivated specimens in European gardens. By this time, it was a commonly cultivated plant all over Europe.

Was going Mr. Thaddeus Tabacco, and willing to up it to Dr. Thaddeus D. Tabacco, but looks like I’ll be opting of this trivia round. …hopefully with a participation sticker

Brazil