
Arctic Char from The Natural History of British Fishes (1802) by Edward Donovan. Original from the New York Public Library.
Image from RawPixel.
The Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) is a species of salmon found in alpine lakes and Arctic and subarctic coastal waters.
The English name ‘char’ is thought to derive from Old Irish ceara/cera meaning “blood red”, which is a reference to the pink-red underside of the fish.
Maybe the word ceara/cera is related to cerise, which is of course a red colour and derives from the same word that in French means cherry. Or maybe not.