The goblin shark has a huge range that includes much of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, but it's most commonly encountered off the coasts of Japan. Japanese fishermen who accidentally caught the sharks couldn't help but notice their protruding snouts, which reminded them of folk stories about a long-nosed, red-faced demon known as the tengu. So they began calling the species tengu-zame. (Zame means "shark" in Japanese.) This was translated into English as "goblin shark," with "elfin shark" being an alternative name the creature occasionally goes by