Why is this story interesting? Well for starters, every primary school student knows the legend, and second, the island was so named after Prince Sang Nila Utama spotted a lion-like creature on the land; mind you Singapore has no lions, other than for the residents at the modern zoos. The Sanskrit name the prince gave the land was Singapura, 'singa' meaning 'lion' and 'pura' meaning 'city', hence you now have the Lion City, home to no native lions.