We get asked a lot: “Where did you get the name Inara for your company?

Okay, so to put it out there front and center for all to see, here you go.

First, Inara is an Arabic word for “lighting,” “brilliance,” or “ray of light.”

But that’s not what came up on our radar screen first. Fans of Firefly will recognize the name as a main character on that TV show. Inara Serra was portrayed by actress Morena Baccarin in the 2002-2003 Firefly TV show and the 2005 Serenity feature film, where she quickly became a fan-favorite character.

Here at Inara, some of us are big fans of the American rock band, Little Feat. Little Feat co-founder and slide guitarist extraordinaire Lowell George named his daughter Inara. Inara George is a successful recording artist in her own right.

And going way back, Inara is a mythological Hittite goddess (going back 6000 years),  goddess of the wild animals of the steppe and daughter of the Storm-god Teshub/Tarhunt. She corresponds to the “potnia theron” of Greek mythology, better known as Artemis.

So, there you go. And the next time someone asks you, “Hmmm, interesting name that company’s got, I wonder where it came from?,” you can provide this piece of trivia.