The island nation of Singapore ("Singapura") derives its name from the Malay words (lion) and (city), which in turn is from the Tamil-Sanskrit சிங்க "singa" and புர . According to the Malay Annals, this name was given by a fourteenth-century Sumatran Malay prince named Sang Nila Utama, who, on alighting the island after a thunderstorm, spotted an auspicious beast on shore that his chief minister identified as a lion (Asiatic lion). Recent studies of Singapore indicate that lions have never lived there.