Sharp Company Name

I have another story about a brand name that’s pretty cool. This one involves a guy named Hayakawa Takuji, who was born in 1893. And he was a very creative guy. By the age of 19, he had invented a belt buckle that became very popular because you could fasten it to any length. It was, you know, those kind of mesh belts and the buckle on it that you can adjust with little rollers instead of the tongue. He invented a belt buckle along those lines.

And then at the age of 20, he patented a special kind of water faucet. And then at 21, he came up with the Hayakawa mechanical pencil. And that was made out of metal and it had a pencil lead inside. I mean, you know, these had to come along sometime, right? He called that one the Hayakawa mechanical pencil.

And then later he developed a version that was better that he called the Ever Ready Sharp Pencil. This one had an ultra-thin lead. And he went on to expand into all different kinds of products, including electronics. And he kept that name from the Ever Ready Sharp Pencil and just applied it to the rest of his products. So that became Sharp Electronics.

Oh, interesting. It didn’t become Ever Ready. No, good question. But no, it became Sharp Electronics. I always thought that had to do with the sharpness of a monitor because I know they make good monitors. But it’s a nice association.

Again, here we are with a word for a product that has a lot to lend itself from the rest of the language. Yeah, a lot of history, and it takes all these twists and turns. I mean, who knew that Sharp Electronics were originally, that the name comes from the name of a pencil. That’s cool.

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