Hello All,
        Talk of names and such in 'another place' set me thinking. Not about
SP plot, but the origins of some of the rumours. How many of you remember
this:

Date posted to web: Friday, December 06, 1996
Origin: Article in 'Variety'

   Lion Redo

   Disney is forging ahead with ``Simba's Pride,'' the direct-to-video
sequel to ``The Lion King.'' Variety says ``Talk Radio'' star Andy Dick
has just signed to voice the villainous Nunka, the son of Scar. The studio
has been talking to Jennifer Aniston and Sarah Jessica Parker to voice
Aisha, the daughter of Simba. Now, it looks like that role will go to
Parker, whose beau, Matthew Broderick, is returning as Simba. One
potentially racy element to the video is that Scar's spawn tries to woo
Aisha. Scar and Simba were brothers, of course, and Variety says the
subject of potentially incestuous cartoon lions has been a topic of heated
discussion among top Disney executives.

        For a while it turned the SP watchers world upside down - up until
this article appeared everyone thought the daughter of Simba was called
Shani. She had a brother Chaka and was to meet and fall in love with the son
of Scar Kovu. Now, throughout SP's history the basic plot premise has been
the same  - Simba's daughter falls for Scar's son and all must come to terms
with it one way or another. What has apparently changed a number of times is
how this is treated in story terms, and with each re-write of the story the
names have chnaged, and presumably the related supporting cast has altered
too. I doubt we'll ever know preciesly how, and what the earlier scripts
were really like.
        Personally I thought the names Aisha and Nunka weren't bad in
themselves, I thought them plausible, but it was well known that Variety was
an unreliable source and prone to picking up on half truths and rumours. We
now know that the role of Simba's Daughter, Kiara of course, went to Neve
Campbell. Andy Dick is thought (though not yet confirmed) to play Nuka, who
may well be Scar's son, but not THE Scar's son that Simba's daughter is
involved with. So they sort of got Nunka right, but what of Aisha? I think
that it might have gone something like this:

 {Phone rings, it's picked up by Variety reporter: VR}

VR: Yeah? Who is it?

{In hushed whispers a Disney employee  (DE) talks}

DE: Shush! Keep it down. Look I gotta be quick, but I got some goss for ya}

{VP reaches for a pen and gets ready to scribbl down notes}

VP:Ok, I'm ready, what you got?

DE: Its this new DTV sequel to Lion King, its called Simba's Pride.

VP: Yeah, I know that, so what else is new?

DE: Its about this Daughter of Simba, you remember him? his father's brother
was Scar...

VP: Simba...brother of Scar, yeah - I got it.

DE: Ok, it's got Scar's son Nuka too.

VP: What was that again?

DE: Nuka.

VP: Nunka... Ok, I got that too, go on.

DE: You better pay good for this.

VP: Yeah, yeah, what else?

DE: the daughter, I'm not sure about her but her name's Asian

VP: Aisha? Great, yeah, that's worth a few bucks,

DE: I gotta go!

{DE hangs up.}

VP goes on to write the article.

The point is that Kiara is an Asian name (Indian almost certainly), and is
more likely to be given to tigers than lions. There's no point looking for a
Swahili translation, because there isn't one. Indeed there's no rule that
states all the names have to be Swahili; Sarafina is a south African name.
Even Nala is an African name, but not an East African one. Here's a true
story:

A three months ago, before I changed my job, I was talking with a collegue
at work. He was a radar systems engineer like me and spends a lot of time on
site, travelling all over the world. A while back he spent about two months
in Cairo (Egypt) and was going to be sent back for a couple of weeks
holiday. He had a better idea, he'd go on a Nile Cruise, starting at Luxor.
The company soon said yes to footing the bill for the flight to Luxor and
the overnight hotel - it was cheaper than the trip to the UK. So, he found
himself in Luxor in a good hotel the night before his cruise. He still had
to pick up his boat tickets and they were to be brought to him by a local
(Egyptian)  travel rep. He was to meet her in the bar of his hotel that
evening.
        That night he met her, and was given the tickets. He still talks
fondly of her (he is one of the 'one in every port' type of guys) and says
her name with fondness - it was Nala....

Bye,
Chris.