I was interested to find out what the Lion King names mean, I did after looking through books and the internet, I also found out some other cool facts.

Simba means lion

Nala means gift

Sarabi mean mirage

Kopa (Simab's son in a book series) means heart

Rafiki means friend

Pumbaa means stunned or slow wittied

Shenzi means savage

Banzai means skulk or lurk

Kovu means scar

Zira means hate (Originaly she was going to be called Bianca!)

Nuka means stink

Vitani was originally going to be called Shetani which means devil.

All other names are real Swahili names.

Rafiki's song 'Asante sana, squash banana, we we nuga, mi mi apana' means 'thank you very much, squash banana, your a baboon and i'm not'

Some original Lion King characters were a lion cub named 'Mee-Too' a fox and a Rhino. Sarafina was also more of an important character having more lines.

Simba's great grandfather is named 'Mohatu'

The lyrics in Hakuna Matata are 'when I was a young warthog' but originaly they were going to be 'when I was a young Meerkat'

There you go.

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180 visitors have seen this article (41 this week)

Nessa, June 19, 2006 at 16: 37 Member

yep... cooll artocle.

Akilah, June 20, 2006 at 08: 55 Member

Actually, i was reading the script on this TLK archive website, and i found out all that stuff too, but there was a small difference. Nala means 'queen' and Pumbaa means 'simpleton'

perfectpureblood, June 20, 2006 at 17: 00 Member

Nala means queen? oh well.

diana000000123, June 22, 2006 at 00: 24 Member

nice :P

Me, June 29, 2006 at 14: 47

and Kiara? what means?

perfectpureblood, July 13, 2006 at 18: 55 Member

Kiara? I think that a real Swahili name.

Sarafina57, July 16, 2006 at 03: 00 Member

thanks! ive been wanting to know what they ment..though you forgot Sarafina...which, i believe, means "bright star" in swahili...

Maya_huskee, July 20, 2006 at 02: 49 Member

Oh, very nice artical! This is one we need! ;) Great job!!

kopa~rulez!, August 01, 2006 at 09: 25 Member

yea, sarafina means bright star. but i don't think nala means queen.

kopa~rulez!, August 01, 2006 at 09: 28 Member

cool article though, i've been wanting to learn all of what their names mean.

*kapu*, August 21, 2006 at 15: 08

Great article!! I love Rafiki's little song! I knew most of the names, I think they are so cool ,but I didn't know Kovu means scar. That was pretty clever:cool:

wolf_conductor, October 14, 2006 at 01: 53 Member

Great! Thanx!

Ithemba, November 19, 2006 at 20: 53 Member

Several of the names mean several things

Kodiwolf-BF-RMW, December 09, 2006 at 17: 27 Member

VERY nice!!! Thanks for writing this, I earned some things - Rafiki's Song was always unclear to me, but now I get it!

layni, February 26, 2007 at 02: 55 Member

that was a really great artical but whatdoes kiara mean?

Tazzy_1992, March 30, 2007 at 22: 29 Member

Great article mate! I learnt stuff

greendrag, October 18, 2007 at 16: 39 Member

Thanks for telling me that! I didn't know all of their meanings. (i didn't know the hyaenas names meanings)

CanineXpert, July 07, 2008 at 02: 37 Member

No, Nala means gift, pureperfectblood was right. Kiara, i checked on, and it's actually an irish word meaning small or dark. Even Disney admitted, but why an irish name for a lion cub? But Kiara could possibly be a name the Swahili people use, because it's also used as a name in different nations.

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