What's in a name? - much more than double vowels and excessive consonants

With just a twist of a vowel, Dastan, the name of our Prince, not only has its literal meaning Trickster but also its symbolic meaning of Story. In his blog, the creator of the Prince of Persia game franchise and the screenwriter of the PoP movie, described the act of giving Jake Gyllenhaal's prince a name - something not gifted to the original prince of the game.


'First, several people (including Jake Gyllenhaal the first day we met) have pointed out to me that Dastan is also a Persian word meaning ”story.” And so it is, although the vowel is pronounced differently. According to wikipedia, a Dastan is a type of Central Asian oral history “centered on one individual who protects his tribe or his people from an outside invader/enemy.” Hey, just like every video game. As it turns out, the word dastan has shadings I wasn’t aware of — shadings that make it an even more appropriate name for the prince than I realized.'


Elsewhere on the blog, Jordan discusses his literary influences for the movie prince: 'The story and screenplay for Prince of Persia were inspired by many sources, especially the tales of the 1001 Nights and Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (Book of Kings). In doing the research I read pretty widely, including the lives and writings of Omar Khayyam, Rumi, and Ibn Battuta, and modern histories such as Frye’s The Golden Age of Persia, but my goal was to create an entertaining fantasy in the spirit of the 1001 Nights.' And, as someone who grew up on 1001 Nights, that sounds perfect.


Elsewhere on the site you can enjoy some of Jordan's sketches from the PoP set in Morocco and some experiences from the filming, in North Africa and at Pinewood, at the end of that Roman Road.

Never enough vowels and consonants - GyllenGaard

The issue of vowels and whether you can have too many of them... Following on from yesterday, Peter Sarsgaard has been talking some more about Mysteries of Pittsburgh, in this case, the pronunciation of the author Michael Chabon: 'Chabon? He has a harder to pronounce last name than me! Mine is phonetic if you just really look at it — don’t get daunted by the number of letters. I think Maggie’s name is much harder. G-Y-L — still not a vowel — L — still not a vowel. Oh, there’s an E, then an H, and then I guess the double As make up for the lack of vowels in the beginning of her name. Compared to that, mine’s a snap.'



Making a good argument for Ramona (a name which incidentally means protector or counsel) not being given a double-barrelled surname, Peter has discussed this abundance of consonants before: 'After the SNL appearance, has it become difficult for even you to say your last name the right way? Peter: You mean without a pirate accent? My name has always seemed very normal to me. And it’s not hard to say. It’s phonetic. Whereas Gyllenhaal, for example, it’s perfectly understandable that you wouldn’t come out with that. Q: Yeah, it’s sort of like, “Buy a vowel!” Peter: I mean, there’s loads of consonants right in a row at the beginning—G-Y-L-L, still no vowel. The double a at the end is just to let you relax after going through all those consonants.''


Includes pictures from IHJ.