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Kiara Questions
1. What does the name Kiara mean?
According to Babynamer.com, Kiara is an alternate form of the girl's name "Ciara" whose source is the Irish Gaelic word "ciar" meaning "Black." However, the Italian name "Chiara" (read it "Kiara") means "light, luminosity, shine." "The name Kiara ranked 1885th in popularity for females of all ages in a sample of the 1990 US Census." - Babynamer.com
Update (May 31, 2006): The page for the name Kiara at Think! Baby Names indicates that in 1998 usage of the name Kiara for new baby girls spiked strongly then leveled off over the next few years, which means that there are quite a few kids out there named Kiara after the character in Simba's Pride.
2. Was her name always Kiara?
No. Other names used before Disney settled on "Kiara" have been "Fluffy" (used as a working name during the production of The Lion King to refer to the cub shown at the end), "Chaka," "Aisha," and "Shani." According to the November 1998 Disney Adventures magazine the name was changed from Aisha to Kiara after the producers "realized Aisha was the name of the Yellow Power Ranger."
3. Who provides the voice for Kiara?
Michelle Horn provides the speaking voice for cub Kiara. Michelle has appeared in several shows such as "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," "Profiler," "The Practice," and "The Journey of Allen Strange." She has recently finished filming Hostage with Bruce Willis.
Charity Sanoy provides cub Kiara's singing voice.
Ashley Edner provided the lion-growling for cub Kiara.
Neve Campbell of "Party of Five" and "Scream" provides the speaking voice for adult Kiara.
Liz Callaway of "Anastasia," "Cats," and "Aladdin and the King of Thieves" provides the singing voice for adult Kiara.
4. Wasn't Kiara supposed to have a sister named Shani?
Apparently Disney originally planned for her to, but, as stated above, Shani may have just been a possible name for Kiara.
5. Wasn't Kiara supposed to be a male?
This qualifies as maybe the number one most frequently asked question about Kiara. The movie The Lion King does not specify the gender of Simba and Nala's cub shown at the end. The authors of some Lion King books had supposed it to be a male lion cub, yet The Art of the Lion King published in November 1995 refers to it in one instance only as "a new cub" and the second instance only as "the infant" without any reference to gender. Some have claimed that the perceptive viewer can spot gender-specific, anatomical differences between baby Simba and baby Kiara in The Lion King. Additionally, in the book Disney's Animal Stories the cub at the end of The Lion King is referred to as Kiara.
6. Who were Kiara's animators in Simba's Pride?
Supervising Animator - Lianne Hughes
Animators - Sid Ahearn; Simon Ashton; Lily Dell; Dick Dunn; Warren Liang; Mac Monks; Katie O'Rourke; Gie Santos; Myke Sutherland
Supervising Character Lead - Janey Dunn
Clean-up Artists - Peter Eastment; Celine Esnault; Max Gunner; James Shan; Brenda Sutton; Nicole Zarubin
General Lion King Simba's/Pride Questions
7. Where was Sarabi in Simba's Pride?
Madge Sinclair, the woman who provided the voice for Sarabi in The Lion King passed away before work began on Simba's Pride. It is not known if Sarabi would have had a part to play in Simba's Pride if Madge Sinclair had still been alive.
8. Where was Sarafina in Simba's Pride?
No one knows for sure, but some have speculated she is the lioness who says, "My, how you've grown," as Kiara gets ready to begin her first hunt and that she may be one of the other lionesses with Simba in addition to Nala at the Pridelander/Outlander confrontation near the beginning of the movie.
9. Who is Nala's father?
No one knows for sure. It is possible that not even the creators of The Lion King know. UPDATE: At the Lion King Reunion that took place on June 14, 2004, the directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff stated that it could either be Scar or Mufasa but that the identity of Nala's father was never decided to any degree of certainty. Rob Minkoff even joked that Roger Allers could be Nala's father.
E-mail more questions about Kiara to kiara@lionking.org.
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