Смирнов, Владимир
Alternatively, the name may have arisen from "a failure to pronounce the Slav syllables of a drink called Vladimir" in English. This gains some credibility from the anecdotal observation that the customer at "The New York Bar" for whom Fernand Petiot prepared the drink in 1920/21 was Vladimir Smirnov, of the Smirnoff vodka family.