commode is one of those words that has strangely varying meanings

it's a style of women's hat that almost looks like a 1-sided miter
it's a low chest of drawers
and finally it was a chamber pot holder named that because it resembled the furnishing of the same name

somehow the toilet one is what stuck in american english and is now also the name for those things that look like a walker with a toilet bowl in it. Probably nowhere else in the world will they not think of a small dresser when they see commode