Who's that Gnome named after?

So, in a bunch of different games by Valve, there's this Garden Gnome, and he's usually associated with an achievement, involving carrying him through an area. Over the course of my internet travels, I've picked up on the fact that his name is "Gnome Chompski". What is the significance of this name?

The name is a play on the name of political writer "Noam Chomsky". I'm not entirely sure if Valve picked him for a reason other than that his first name sounded like "gnome".

I am fairly certain Valve did not come up with this. There are mentions of Garden Gnome Chomsky on the web from 2006 (for example) which predates Left 4 Dead.

(I would have added this a s a comment, but there is no option to comment or reply to comment for some reason)