Does anyone realise...

[on:]

...that Leela's name is from a character in Doctor Who? Did Groening rip the name off or is a weird coincidence?  - if anyone cares. 

[Reply #1 on:]

I did find that out a while ago 

The DVD commentaries did mention the genisis of Leela's name though I can't remember what they said about it, though I doubt it was inspired by Doctor Who, otherwise I personally think they would have added more homages to the show in various other places as well.

Is a nice coincidence, considering the sort of character Leela is in Doctor Who 

Leela is also a traditional Indian name meaning "play" (I think...)

[Reply #2 on:]

it's also arabic for 'dark as night'

[Reply #3 on:]

Yes, but I think that's spelt Leila, which may be closer to Layla than Leela (I can't remember  Arabic pronounciations though), but many sites I've seen sort of class Layla, Leila and Leela as the same name so you're right.
Opps, I've made it obvious I've obviously spent lots of time look up the meaning of Leela's name Shhhhh, they don't have to know if we don'ts tells them!

[Reply #4 on:]

Yeah, i realised that ages ago when i was watching Dr.who on the ABC

[Reply #5 on:]

 

Originally posted by Zed 85:
Yes, but I think that's spelt Leila, which may be closer to Layla than Leela (I can't remember  Arabic pronounciations though), but many sites I've seen sort of class Layla, Leila and Leela as the same name so you're right.

If you look at MG's original drawing of Leela, her name is spelt Leila, as opposed to Who's Leela.

And he's said in an article somewhere that Leela's name didn't come from Dr. Who.

[Reply #6 on:]

 

Originally posted by Zed 85:

Leela is also a traditional Indian name meaning "play" (I think...)

"And this picture is from when I went to live in India for a while..."

[Reply #7 on:]

There's dozens of threads about the origin of Leela's name in Human Resources.  The prevailing theory involves Messiaen's "Turangalila" symphony.

[Reply #8 on:]

seems like thats probably where i came from canned eggs.

[Reply #9 on:]

The "Turanga" part of "Turangalila" is a dead give-away IMO. The similarity of the Dr Who character is probably coincidental, although you never know with Futurama. Maybe that's why the "lila" part morphed into "Leela"?

[Reply #10 on:]

But... I heard that the name Leela was inspired by the word "lila" that means purple in some languages?

[Reply #11 on:]

Possibly.  Or maybe they came up with "Leela" first, then when the time came to give her a family name they came across "turangalila" somewhere.

[Reply #12 on:]

Both good, the important thing is we're sticking with the "Turangalila" theory. Someone should write to davidxcohen@aol.com and get confirmation for either theory.

The Danish word for purple is "lilla", although the pronounciation is different. I don't know about Swedish and German.

[Reply #13 on:]

The Welsh word for purple is "piws".  Which helps us not one bit. 

[Reply #14 on:]

Lila in Swedish,
Purpurrot in German.

The Swedish pronounciation is actually very similar.. Tho I never thought about it. 

[Reply #15 on:]

Lila is how Russians spell Leela, because of the pronouciation of "i" or "и" [Лила]
So "Турангалила" would come out TurangaLeela - and I seem to remember Matt had slight Russian ancestry (though I'm probably making it up) and Katey Sagal is technically half Russian...but as my arguement collapses and I see the merry band of native Russian speakers marching my way to blow my theory out of the water, I will probably say that the reference to the colour of purple is more likely...   

/edit: Jdan's probaby got the winner, considering how many times Sweden gets mentioned in Futurama, the link's probably there.

Though it could just be that Matt had TurangaLila, then thought "Lila" didn't roll quite so nicely off the tongue as "Leela" would.

[Reply #16 on:]

does ne one know where to download the theme

[Reply #17 on:]

Here's two pronounciations of it in swedish, divided by the guy saying "även"
 http://www.soli.se/_var/lila.mp3

[Reply #18 on:]

 

Originally posted by loganmoore44:
does ne one know where to download the theme

what the hell are you talking about? 

also, i would have to go with the "turangalila" symphony theory.i mean sure, they changeed the spelling, but probably just because "lila" doesn't really look like it would be pronounced "LEE-luh"