When Mogu ruled over what we now know as ‘Pandaria’ what did they call it?
Given the vast hubris of the Mogu, I highly doubt they would had allowed it to be called after the vast majority of their slaves & “lesser subjects” to the namesake of ‘Pandaria’.
As per ‘Vol’Jin: Shadows of the Horde’ page 167:
During the reign of the mogu empire, “Pandaria” was considered the vulgar name for the region. The mogu carefully guarded its true name to the point of not even revealing it to their Zandalari allies.
So it made me wonder what they called it instead
It’s been quite sometime since I played the expansion or dabbled through content, so can’t recall too much on names or references to what they had called it instead whilst during their iron-fist rule over the region — Any ideas?
“We won’t even reveal the name of the land to our allies and no Pandaren historians even know it”, to me, reads as “The writers didn’t think of it and it wasn’t even a thought in any of their heads until this novel was written”.
But it’s probably some Mogu name that translates to “Eternally Blessed Land Sculpted by the Hands of the Gods” or something equally verbose.
Huh, hadn’t seen that excerpt before. I always headcanoned that the etymology was supposed to flow in the other direction. That is, that the continent was named Pandaria first and the pandaren wound up referring to themselves as a people of that land.
That’s what they called their empire, not the continent itself.
Honestly, I’d imagine something like ‘Mogulia’ - as a reference to Mongolia, would be something that they had named it.
After the grand revolution however, I’d wager all the races whom were freed from the Mogu tyranny would have given a nod of credit to the Pandaren for being the bulk & pillar of the revolution; thus for the most part collectively agreeing upon the name ‘Pandaria’
I mean, there’s still Mogu present who existed during the revolution.
So it’s less lost to history & more neglected to be mentioned.
Draenor
As for the orcish name for Draenor, they may had used the name utilised by the Ogres – Given they were under their thumb or lived in close proximities in many regions.
The ogres called the world ‘Dawgar’ (meaning “The Known Earth”)
Whereas the Arakkoa called it Rakshar (meaning “The Sunstone”)
Personally — I thought it was interesting each branch of people had a unique name for the world. Felt much more real in terms of social constructs, than everyone from all foreign nations seemingly having the same name for the world
Pandraria probably was called by its old titanic sector designation, whatever that was. They saw themselves as the true inheritor of the will of the Titans after all.
