Looking for famous people, real or fictional, with an assistant or partner named Watson. I can think of three:
Sherlock Holmes.
Francis Crick.
Alexander Graham Bell.
Any others? It should meet the following criteria:
It needs to be a fairly famous team, that a reasonably well educated person is likely to have heard of.
Watson should be either the assistant, or an equal partner. He should be the second named in the team. No “Watson and ______” teams.
It should be stated as a pair (or trio) of names, and not something like “the cast of Harry Potter”.
robby
October 23, 2025, 4:01am
2
I’ve always heard of Watson and Crick as Watson and Crick.
Sesame Street’s Sherlock Hemlock had a sidekick named Watson, who was a dog.
Generations of math students know “Whittaker and Watson.”
A Course of Modern Analysis: an introduction to the general theory of infinite processes and of analytic functions; with an account of the principal transcendental functions (colloquially known as Whittaker and Watson) is a landmark textbook on mathematical analysis written by Edmund T. Whittaker and George N. Watson, first published by Cambridge University Press in 1915. The first edition was Whittaker's alone, but later editions were co-authored with Watson.
Its first, second, third, and t...
First name for me to fill in the blank upon seeing the OP title.
LSLGuy
October 23, 2025, 1:07pm
9
Agreed. IME/IMO always “Watson and Crick”, never the opposite.
But … Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid - Wikipedia Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid | Nature
Now Crick was English and Watson was American, so perhaps how they’re cited depends mostly on who’s doing the citing and where they’re from.
Oddly enough, there’s also a “Holmes and Watson” pairing in professional golf:
Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson but that’s probably stretching it.
Kimstu
October 23, 2025, 4:56pm
12
On a related note, there are school districts named Madeira, and school districts named Watson, but apparently there does not exist any Madeira Watson Elementary.
Sigh.
Jouledaughter and Watson. I’ll let myself out…
Peter Parker and MJ Watson.
Watson Sr. and Watson Jr. (Thomas J. Watson, CEOs of IBM) led the company as a team for a few years prior to Watson Sr. retiring, but this fails the no “Watson and _______“ test.
vvv
GuanoLad:
Aw, man!
A little clarification. “Watson and Crick” is acceptable because they are (AFAIK) equal partners in their work. “Watson and Oliver” works too.
What I don’t want is “Watson and Smith” where Watson is the senior figure, and Smith the assistant.
Also, I always heard “Crick and Watson”. Maybe it’s a British vs American thing. Not that it matters for this discussion.
I’d always heard Watson & Crick. In light of their later careers, I’d always figured that Crick was the real brains.
Mathematicians avoid this problem by always listing joint authors alphabetically. Well, I know one exception but they are very rare.