I’m sure it’s a question that’s come up to people who stumble across this site: What is Xadara? Does it have some kind of meaning? Is it just a name? How do you even pronounce it? Where does it come from?
Might as well cover it all, for those curious. Let’s begin!
What is the origin of the site name?
Quite honestly, I don’t at all recall what the origin is for sure. I know at some point it came up as an idea of something that sounded cool to me to use as an overall name for the projects I worked on at the time, and was usable for future endeavours. The name sounded pleasant, and I’m a big fan of things that sound culturally unique, so, I just went with it.
Does it actually mean anything?
No, not to my understanding. Searches for the term that don’t bring up the website will bring it up as part of some people’s names, but nothing else actually on “XADARA” as a word in and of itself. Seems like I missed out on accidentally picking a word that had an undesirable meaning in another language, which is of course a good thing.
So it has no actual ethnic basis?
Nope, I just thought it sounded cool. Still do.
How do you pronounce it?
Something that amazes me is that virtually everyone learns what a “Xylophone” is as a kid, and how to pronounce it (zye-lo-fone) without any issue, yet for whatever reason no one can pronounce any other word at all that has an X in it. I hear people say “eks-a-dah-ra” all the time and as you can imagine it’s quite painful to hear such an easy to pronounce word be butchered.
The best phonetic spelling I can give to how to pronounce the site name would be “zuh-dah-ra”; to better explain, the first A is more of a soft “uh” sound, the second A being held a tiny bit longer creating a slight h sound at the end of it, and the final R and A following the pattern set by the prior syllables. Honestly quite easy to pronounce naturally to any English speaker – you don’t need to add any crazy accents or slow it down, just say it as it would flow and it should come out correctly, knowing what sounds should be said.
Perhaps I should have picked an easier word, but eh, uniqueness keeps it in peoples minds more over time.
So, what does the name mean to you personally?
Ah, the fun part, what does it really mean to me? It’s a mixture of things. The core idea is being yourself, being true to who you are and how you feel about things. Yeah, that sounds kind of sappy but damnit it’s what I think of when I think of the site. It’s an idea of just doing what you want and having fun with it, enjoying what you want to, while also making your opinions known for what they are worth to whomever will have them.
It’s more complex than that, really, but perhaps I’m ascribing too much to a website name. Or maybe not. Who knows. Hey, if you’re still reading this then you found it interesting enough, right?
I think that covers everything that would normally come up with the site name. Perhaps its more than people would need or want to know, but whatever. It is what it is.