Thanks @Candy. What I liked to share is this: (from Arctic Dreams)
"We know more about the rings of Saturn than we know about the narwhal. The Chilean poet and essayist Pablo Neruda wonders in his memoirs how an animal this large can have remained so obscure and uncelebrated. It's name, he thought, was "the most beautiful of undersea names, the name of a sea chalice that sings, the name of a crystal spur." Why, he wondered, had no one taken Narwhal for a last name, or built "a beautiful Narwhal Building?"
Part of the answer lies with the regrettable connotation of death in the animal's name. The pallid color of the narwhal's skin has been likened to that of a drowned human corpse, and it is widely thought that it's name came from the Old Norse for "corps" and "whale, " nár + hvalr. But W.P. Lehman, a professor of Germanic languages, believes the association with death is a linguistic accident. The Old Norse nárhvalr ( whence the English narwhal, the French narval, the German Narwal, etc.), he says, was a vernacular play on the word--- the way high-bred corn is used in place of hybrid corn, or sparrowgrass is used for asparagus.---
According to Lehman, nahvalr is an earlier, West Norse term meaning a "whale distinguished by a long, narrow projection" ( the tusk). "
I'm no expert to confirm this, but I thought it interesting for sharing (quite a bit of typing work, so time needed) :^)
