Now, this is a new one to me...

ShiShi Watches & Designs blog, which appears to be based in Turkey spins a new origination for the name Meerschaum than I've heard before. While it rings true, it is hard to say if this is the case or not.

The name meerschaum is the German word for sea foam (Meer, sea + Schaum, foam). It is said that this designation was given because of the once held belief that it represented compressed whitecaps of waves in the sea;  its light weight and off-white color  apparently led to this belief.  It is recorded that “Meerschaum was named by German sailors who found it floating in the Black Sea and thought it was ’sea foam’ until it started bumping against their ship.”

Now of course we all knew that Meerschaum literally translated to "sea foam" from German, but one certainly wonders where this was "recorded" to see if there is any validity to this. I plan on reaching out and seeing if we can get more validation for this spin on it's name.