| Wikipedia claims the word Crayon goes back to the 1600s, and has photos of boxes with the word "crayon" from 20 years before the company that became "Crayola" existed. So what name did they have to give up? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crayon Better examples from Wikipedia are: Aspirin, originally a trademark of Bayer AG Butterscotch, originally a trademark of Parkinson's Escalator, originally a trademark of Otis Elevator Company[4][5][6] Heroin, originally a trademark of Bayer AG Kerosene, originally a trademark of Abraham Gesner Phillips-head screw, named after Henry F. Phillips Pogo for the toy Pogo stick[6][7] Sellotape, a brandname of The Sellotape Company Thermos, originally a trademark of Thermos GmbH Tipp-Ex, originally a trademark of German manufacturers Tipp-Ex GmbH & Co. KG Yo-yo, originally a trademark of Duncan Yo-Yo Company Zipper, originally a trademark of B.F. Goodrich[6][8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark |