brandname etymology

Reading through a list of required materials for a drawing workshop, I discovered that Caran d'Ache is a Swiss writing materials brand. In Russian, karandash means pencil. There even was a famous clown whose stage name was Karandash. I always thought it was a Turkish word.

Meanwhile Blogger is getting closer to Xerox.

Update: it gets interesting. Karandash, originally karatas, is indeed a tyurksk or Turkish word meaning "black stone", according to this well-researched article. Company name was secondary. Thanks albars.