Names
According to Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, she was called The Beautiful Animal of the King (le bel animal du roi) during her trip from Marseille to Paris. A 1998 book written by American author Michael Allin (Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris) and a 2012 French animation film both refer to her as Zarafa, which is the Arabic for "Giraffe". Another Arabic word with a similar pronunciation, meaning "charming" or "lovely one" was mentioned by Allin as a possible etymology, but this is ruled out as both words are spelled with different Arabic letters.
Read more about this topic: Giraffe Given To Charles X Of France By Muhammad Ali Of Egypt
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes!”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“The names of all fine authors are fictitious ones, far more so than that of Junius,—simply standing, as they do, for the mystical, ever-eluding Spirit of all Beauty, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Men have sometimes exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify that in their friend each loved his own soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)