What is the best possible honor a person can get?
a) A day in their honor, like Colombus, Washington, or MLK
b) A coin with their picture on it
c) A stamp with their picture on it
d) A prize, like Nobel, Pulitzer
e) A prize named after you like Nobel or Pulitzer
f) A city, state, country, body of water named after you
g) A verb named after you
Alright, this is JMHO. I have arranged your alternatives in the order I see most appropriate, along with explanations as to why I think so.
Starting with the least honorable.
A verb named after you. It just seems to me a very ordinary thing. Lets remember that a word is officialy a word whenever enough people use it, it’s not like it needs to be approved or anything. Example: I think I’ll mona this. (Mona Sahlin is a Swedish politician, she used her government credit card to buy diapers and chocolate.)
A stamp with your picture on it. A fairly common way to honor athletes and singers and such. At least in Sweden.
A prize, like Nobel or Pulitzer. Mainly because, relatively speaking, more people are awarded prizes than instituting them.
A prize named after you, like Nobel or Pulitzer. Mainly because Nobel (for instance) instituted the prize himself. It wasn’t someone else who thought he was so great that he deserved to have a prize in his honor. But it’s still cooler than 5, 6 and 7.
A city, state, country, body of water named after you. In most cases these things last forever, but sometimes they don’t. Leningrad for instance. And how many people living in Washington, DC, think about George Washington on a daily basis?
A coin with their picture on it. Easy. A picture. How cool is that?
A day in their honor, like Columbus, Washington, or MLK. The rest of the alternatives are not necessarily meant to remember a certain person. A day in your honor is specifically designed to be a tribute to you, kids read about how cool you were and there are parades. Imagine that, parades!
Anyway, JMHO.
Excellent point, soda! (Though compared to some things politicians indulge in, diapers and chocolate sound pretty harmless! -->assume a smile & wink here<–) The other day I heard someone say, “He got Starred”–meaning hounded and nitpicked by a zealot a la special prosecutor Ken Starr’s jihad against the Clintons and anyone close to them.
Seems like people whose names become part of a language aren’t exactly being complimented, no matter what form it takes, i.e. noun, verb, adjective. The first word/name that popped into my brain was Quisling. It’s means traitorous, from the WWII Norwegian enthusiastically led a puppet government for the Nazis during occupation.
You’re absolutely right. No one sanctioned the word; people just adopted it because it’s such an apt shorthand way to express something complex. But it sure ain’t flattering. If anything it keeps infamous behavior, well, famous.
Veb
Are you kidding?
You ain’t made it until they’ve named a beer after you or Weird Al has parodied you. 
The above ain’t nothing compared to a rare SDMB post by the great Cecil Adams, mentioning you in bold.
All else, is transcience …
A prize. Namely the Pulitzer. (That’s Zoggie’s goal…her idealistic one, anyways.) Because you have to work for it, I guess. Well, having one named after you is good too, but as soda said…a lot of people just name them after themselves. A day would be nice if they didn’t take me for granted.
I’d really like to judge Westminister, but that’s a (sigh) pipe cleaner dream. Still, I can dream, right?
I know what you mean Ice…
Keith
Grrr…forgot the sig…
The highest honor is to have temples built exclusively to worship you.
For me, the best possible honor I ever had or could hope to have was when my 13 year old daughter told her friends, in FRONT of me, how cool I was because I listened to cool music.
Highest possible honour?
To have one’s spouse and children say they love and respect you.
Anything else is just a poor substitute.
I would settle for People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive”, but I wont hold my breath.
I’ve got to agree with jti. Being “dad” is both my highest achievement and greatest reward.
On the issue of having a verb named after you, you’d have to ask the former intern if “getting Monica’d” is an honor or not. 
Having someone say “I trust you.”
Never having somone say “I trusted you.”
You haven’t made the big time until you are an action figure
Oh! Getting to host SNL.
That’s funny - before I read the link, I thought you were talking about someone like Joe Caucasian.
Seriously:
To have someones child named after you.
To have someone say I love you.
To have someone say you are a good friend
To have someone ask for your opinion because they trust you
To be seen as a good person
Keith
Nah. I’d prefer a national Holiday. with Parades (soda :))