Before the lion king movie came out I had always associated the name Simba with an elephant. I can still hear someone in a movie saying" Up, Simba, up!!" asking the elephant to lift something heavy to save the day. It’s not the elephant who saved charlton heston in “the greatest show on earth” I think it’s from one of the tarzan movies.
That would be odd indeed, since “simba” means lion in Swahili. Maybe not as odd as a chimpanzee named Cheetah, though.
And your question is…
Anyway I am always reminded of Kimba the white lion.
That would be interesting, given that simba is Swahili for lion. It’s certainly possible that elephants were called simba, especially in movies not interested in accuracy, but there’s no connection in the African language the word actually comes from.
(Note that the link above gives many possible translations for simba. The translation I mention is what most Americans think of.)
Tembo is Swahili for lion.
Looks like Colibri is drunk and posting again. 
No doubt you meant “elephant” rather than “lion.”
Remember, it’s 5 parts quinine to 1 part gin, not the other way around. 
And it would be easy to confuse “tembo” with “simba” in my opinion. Especially if an early memory.
Damn, I meant Tembo is Swahili for elephant.
Y’know, I caught that right away, but it wouldn’t let me post a second time within 60 seconds. And by then I needed to top up the Scotch.
Gin! The very idea!
Erm, possibly Jumbo?
Well, its 2 syllables with mb in the middle.
It’s from the Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies. Found a reference on this site about Tarzan’s Secret Treasure (1941).
According to other sites, “Umgawa” or “Ungawa” was a word made up by the movie screenwriters which could mean almost anything, “Get down,” “Let’s go,” etc.
Edgar Rice Burroughs created an ape-language for the books, in which “lion” was “numa” and “elephant” was “tantor.” Apparently the screenwriters changed these words to either Swahili (sometimes with no relation to the real meaning) or to gibberish because of copyright issues.