i understand and agree with a lot of what you're saying here
reposted from Google Plus
Because the name "Turk's Head" has always bothered me (if they wanted to be respectful, they probably would have gone with "turban" or something that didn't involve "head") I've been wanting to see if the Chinese naming offers anything less fraught. To get that, we need more consensus though, unless I'm just looking in the wrong place.
...
the flower-like appearance of the flat mat tightening as well as the hoop/band appearance of the cylinder tightening.
... Of course, TH doesn't really handle those cases as such either... Flower-hoop knot? Flower-stream knot?
...
Coming back to English and the definition of a TH there's cylindrical/tubular braid or woven ring.
... how about "Brunnian knots" ? Look at the pictures, it's so close! Yah, I know, that would just add tons of confusion and noise to math concept searches... but that'd be good for them, and you too. 8-)
when i first got into ring knots,
i didn't quite understand the reference of 'turk's head',
i immediately thought it referred to hat gear,
but didn't know what it looked like.
it occurred to me that maybe the knot had dark brown hair.
i can see that knots get a descriptive, even whimsical, name.
because calling a knot the "x = r * cos(phi) * cos(theta)" might not get across either.
as is naming of animals, like a seahorse;
the name was given because we've seen a horse first.
i was not sure of the reference to 'turk's' nor 'head'
in knotting matters magazine issue 33, 1990, mr lester copestake writes against the use of words turban and puggarree in settings other than referring to head gear.
(i found that issue thanks to the somewhat amazing k.m 1-100 index pdf! )
i don't particularly like the 'turk's head knot' description,
for reasons similar to knotme's comments,
and because there's other names the knots can go by,
like brunnian?, ring knot, ring mat, cylindrical knot, torus?, trochoidal, cycloidal ...
the originator of the spirograph came up with that universal name.