A Lion City, birthed

This one’s a favourite among many locals, even if it’s no longer told: Back in the 1200s, a prince of the Sumatran Srivijaya Empire – Sang Nila Utama – was hunting on an island close to the then-undiscovered Singapore. He chased a deer to the top of a cliff and spotted another island across the sea, which his chief minister said was called Temasek (Singapore’s traditional name), or ‘Sea Town’ in Old Javanese.

The prince returned to his ship to make the crossing to Temasek, but a violent storm forced him and his men to discard heavy items into the sea to stop the ship from sinking. This didn’t seem to help, so the prince was urged to throw his crown overboard to appease the sea. He relented, and the storm quickly abated, allowing them to arrive on the shores of Temasek. The prince soon spotted a wild animal with an orange mane. His minister claimed it was a lion, or ‘singha’ (the Sanskrit word for lion). Believing it to be a good omen, the prince decided to stay on the island and named the island ‘Singapura’, or, ‘Lion City’.

references Wikipedia