Caran d'Ache (1858-1909)

Pseudonym of Emmanuel Poiré, cartoonist. His pseudonym comes from the Russian word for pencil, карандаш. I'd always thought that the etymology worked the other way round, and that Russians didn't have pencils until the mid-nineteenth century. A little reflection should have made me realise that this was a foolish notion. Карандаш comes from Turkic.

Here's Terence Wade's Russian Etymological Dictionary on pencils:

КАРАНДАШ [karandáš] 'pencil'. 17th century, from Tkc., cf. Turk. qara 'black', taş 'stone', perhaps a reference to graphite shales or the gnesses from which graphite is mined (for increscent -н-, cf. каланчá 'watch-tower', also a Tkc. loan). Caran d'ache is used as a brand name by the well-known Swiss manufacturers of high-quality writing implements.

Wade doesn't mention the link between the cartoonist and the pencil company; the Wikipedia page for Poiré insists that the company was named after him. Anyway, here's a cartoon of his, sent me by my brother Ben:



In related (or almost related) etymological fun, here's Wade on railway stations:

ВОКЗАЛ [vokzál] 'mainline station'. From Eng. Vauxhall, a pleasure garden opened in 1661 and a favourite resort of the English metropolis until its closure in 1859. Similar gardens appeared in [the] 1770s in St. Petersburg and Moscow (as фоксал/воксал, with subsequent replacement of -с- by -з-, by analogy with зал 'hall'), described as 'illuminated garden[s] with pleasure pavilions, buffets, music, plays and comic operas', and later in the provinces. With the advent of railways the Pavlovsk terminus (вокзал) of the St. Petersburg-Pavlovsk line (opened in 1837) combined the functions of passenger hall and concert hall (with orchestra and gypsy singing and, from 1840, symphony concerts). As the prestige of вокзалы as leisure centres declined, the meaning 'railway station' (recorded in dictionaries late 19th century) emerged as the sole connotation of the word.