I once read that "Karamazov" was a mix of "black" and "meat" + the russian -ov for family-names....
can't remember the language though .... vaguely i remember turkish but that can be a complete mis-hit...
and then the question stays wether it was the "kara" that refers to meat or the "maz"....
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:17:46 -0300
From: jansy@AETERN.US
Subject: [NABOKV-L] [NABOKOV-L] Caro Van
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
On Apr 13, 2010, Alexey
Sklyarenko wrote re "caro Van" in my previous post: caro is Latin for
"flesh", but the phrase seems to mean "dear Van" in Italian.
Carolyn Kunin: You are
confusing caro and carne - - that's Italian, but I'm pretty sure the Latin
is similar.
JM: Alexey's reference to
caro,carnis" ( Latin, for "meat/flesh") surprised me. It is found in the internet - but not in regular
dictionaries of Portuguese when we search after the etymology of "carne"
(as in "carnivorous", "carnal love", "incarnate", aso).
What I found out, though, is that the Latin,
contrary to C.Kunin's supposition, is not "similar" in both cases. Caro (with
the meaning of "dear", "cher", expensive or beloved) bears no relation to
"carnis" but derives from "carus." Nevertheless, the word "caruncle" indicates a meaty excrescence,
and scabous wounds resulting from "acarus" are associated to
flesh.
That's as far as I'm able to go. I don't think
Nabokov had "carnal" in mind in "Caro Van"...that's certain.
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