“Aslan,” the name of the great lion in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, means “lion” in Turkish. Lewis used the Turkish word as the character’s name while presenting Aslan as Narnia’s most powerful and benevolent figure.
Aslan appears throughout The Chronicles of Narnia, though his role varies from book to book. He creates Narnia in The Magician’s Nephew, guides characters in several stories, and is closely associated with sacrifice, resurrection, judgment, and restoration.
Readers often describe Aslan simply as a talking lion, but the character has a much larger symbolic and narrative role. Lewis stated that Aslan represents the presence of Christ in the fictional world of Narnia, while remaining a character within its own story.