Official Disney Princess Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ariel and Belle

Of the ones listed in the answer choices, Ariel (from "The Little Mermaid") and Belle (from "Beauty and the Beast") are the only Official Disney Princesses who don't have black or blonde hair. Ariel has red hair; Belle has brown hair. Aurora (from "Sleeping Beauty") and Cinderella (from "Cinderella") have blonde, while Mulan (from "Mulan"), Pocahontas (from "Pocahontas"), Snow White (from "Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs"), and Tiana (from "The Princess and the Frog") all have black.

Jasmine (from "Aladdin") also has black hair. Merida (from "Brave") is another Official Disney Princess who has red hair. Rapunzel (from "Tangled") is interesting; she gained magical power from the sun to have her hair change to a bright, light blonde, which she had for most of the film.

According to the Disney Wiki Cinderella article, her hair color has changed throughout the years. In the (1950) film, it was "burnt orange." However, she is shown as a golden blonde in the franchise. This has led to fans debating over what her real hair color really should be. The most common assumption is that she is, or should be, a strawberry-blonde.

Personally, I think that golden blonde, strawberry-blonde, and red hair are ALL pretty AND princess-like. But I do want to point out that strawberry-blonde is indeed a shade of blonde hair, which is different from burnt orange, which is indeed a shade of red hair.

Frankly, this "burnt orange" with Cinderella stuff is new to me. When I was much younger, my mom and I watched "Cinderella" a lot, and I always thought that her hair looked blonde. I never thought that she perhaps was supposed to be a redhead. When I got a little older, I did begin to think that Cinderella's hair was a tad bit different and/or darker than Sleeping Beauty's hair (my favorite princess and another movie I watched a lot). It is my opinion, therefore, that Cinderella could be strawberry-blonde, but I wouldn't go so far as to to call her a "ginger" or a "burnt orange."

IF Cinderella is strawberry-blonde, she is definitely still a blonde; just in case anybody was wondering whether or not somebody who doesn't have stereotypical blonde hair should still be considered a blonde. She just has a different shade of blonde than Aurora does. After all, there are many types of blond/blonde hair, including types that look almost brown! One example of a dark blonde/brownish-blonde is "dark ash blonde."

Answer: African-American (black) princess

Tiana--from "The Princess and the Frog" (2009)--was Disney's first African-American or black princess. While some people may think that she was the first non-white princess, they are clearly wrong! Disney already had three other non-white princesses: Jasmine, an Arab (1992), Pocahontas, a Native American (1995), and Mulan, a Chinese (1998).

Even though I threw this answer in to be funny, I honestly don't want to know what an "Alien and goblin hybrid/mix princess" is. I also don't want to know if Disney has ever made one before, lol.

Answer: Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel

Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel are three Official Disney Princesses who had evil or cruel stepmothers. I would say that Snow White's stepmother was the worst, because she wanted to violently kill her for no reasons other than jealousy and vanity, but Cinderella's was also very mean. Rapunzel's may not be quite as bad; still, she was a witch and she kept Rapunzel from having a normal life.

Aurora/Sleeping Beauty faced adversity, but it wasn't because of a stepmother; it was because of an evil fairy (Maleficent). Similar statements could be said about characters like Ariel and Jasmine; although, in my opinion, it is kind of hard to feel sorry for Ariel. She purposely went and made contact with Ursula, the sea witch, whereas Aurora was just a newly-born baby when Maleficent cursed her. (Don't get me wrong; I DO like Ariel).

Even though the original versions of "Sleeping Beauty" say nothing about it, in fact the princess is raised by her parents in the originals, Disney's has her raised by the three good fairies. While they may have acted as stepmothers (truthfully, they were more like her aunts) they were very good to her, so they weren't evil/cruel stepmothers.

In their Disney films, Aurora, Mulan, and Tiana have not only loving, biological moms, but their moms are also living. Rapunzel does have a living, loving mother, but she was raised by her "stepmother."
Even though their moms are assumed to have been loving, Ariel, Jasmine, Belle, and Pocahontas all have moms who are dead or at least assumed to be dead. Snow White and Cinderella have dead moms, too, but the difference is that Ariel, Jasmine, Belle, and Pocahontas only have fathers; they have no living mother figures at all, cruel or loving.

Of the ones listed, Cinderella and Snow White are the only princesses who lost BOTH their biological mothers and fathers. Their fathers were alive long enough to remarry wretched women (I mean, wretched women disguised as decent women) obviously, but then they died not that long after the marriages. You can find versions of "Cinderella" where her father is only on a trip for a few years, giving the stepmother the freedom to abuse her, but in the Disney version, he died.

Tiana is the only princess to have had her father die while her mother stayed alive. This is different from many of the others; who had their mothers die, but their fathers didn't.

Ariel has a 2008 movie centered around her childhood and how her mother died. It's called "Ariel's Beginning."

Answer: Phillip

It's Phillip, Aurora's husband! Even though the spellings are slightly different, the Disney character shares his name with real-life Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

According to the Disney Wiki Prince Phillip article, he was named after the Duke of Edinburgh, who was "the prince that Americans knew of best at the time."

Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II and the grandfather of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.
Prince Philip was born in 1921. Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" was released in 1959.

Eugene Fitzherbert is Rapunzel's husband; Aladdin is Jasmine's husband; Naveen is Tiana's husband. There may be real people who have the names Aladdin, Naveen, and/or Eugene Fitzherbert (there certainly are people named Eugene)! However, these princes don't appear to share their names with any real-life princes.

I always did wonder if there was some kind of connection between Aurora's prince and Prince Philip!

Answer: Rapunzel

In 1995, 15 years before Disney's version of "Rapunzel" premiered, a Rapunzel Barbie doll was released. There actually were several Barbie Rapunzel dolls (they didn't look exactly the same) and they all existed before Disney's movie. One was released in 1997. In 2002, a Rapunzel doll was released to go along with the film "Barbie as Rapunzel".

Here's the thing: I got the impression from all my Internet searches that there never were any Barbie dolls based on the princesses from "The Little Mermaid" or "Aladdin"; certainly not BEFORE Disney released their films. But IF there were, they couldn't have had the names Ariel or Jasmine, or else something really strange would have been going on there! In the original fairytales, The Little Mermaid didn't have a name, and Aladdin's princess was Badroulbadour! So, yeah, I was being sneaky there...

I was also being sneaky when I included The Swan Princess in there. It is true that there have been Barbie dolls and films based on "The Swan Princess", but Disney has NOT made a movie based on that story; certainly not a movie where an Official Disney Princess stars in it. I like Princess Odette and "The Swan Princess", but that movie is NOT Disney's.

Answer: Aurora, Ariel, and Jasmine

John Smith (from "Pocahontas"), Prince Charming (from "Cinderella"), and Prince Eric (from "The Little Mermaid") weren't born princesses. You can be sure of that!

Minnie Mouse, Daisy Duck, and Maid Marian (from "Robin Hood") are at least female, but they aren't Official Disney Princesses.

Belle, Mulan, and Tiana ARE Official Disney Princesses, but Belle and Tiana became princesses by marriage. Mulan isn't a princess by birth nor marriage, but she's still given the title.

Aurora, Ariel, and Jasmine were born princesses, as were Snow White, Pocahontas, and Rapunzel. Cinderella is another who became one by her marriage to a prince.

Answer: He wasn't any of these

Just for interest, this is how Merriam Webster online defines "beast":
1a: a four-footed mammal as distinguished from a human being, a lower vertebrate, and an invertebrate
b: a lower animal as distinguished from a human being
c: an animal as distinguished from a plant
d: an animal under human control
2: a contemptible person
3: something formidably difficult to control or deal with

Disney's Beast is not a beast in the sense that he is a regular animal. He is a fictional creature. He's still a beast, though. What else would someone call him?

According to the Disney Wiki article on the Beast:
"The Beast is not of any one species of animal, but a chimera, a mixture of several animals. He has the head structure and horns of a buffalo, the arms and body of a bear, the eyebrows of a gorilla, the jaws, teeth, and mane of a lion, the tusks of a wild boar and the legs and tail of a wolf. He also bears resemblance to mythical monsters like the Minotaur or a werewolf."

Now, in other versions of this fairytale, the character IS more like a regular animal. In a novel I read a few years ago, "Beast" by Donna Jo Napoli (released in 2000) the Beast is a lion. He also was a prince of Persia and was a Muslim (when he was a human). The character of Belle/Beauty, though, is similar to Disney's; she was still French too.
In "Beauty and the Beast" (a 1946 Jean Cocteau film) (oh, by the way, I watched this movie a couple of years ago as well) the Beast is a huge cat-like creature.

Answer: Linda Larkin (as Jasmine)

Linda Larkin, a white actress (born March 20, 1970) provided the speaking voice for Jasmine in the "Aladdin" film, as well as in its sequels; other portrayals of Jasmine.
But even though she was picked to play the part of her, she was also told that she needed to lower her voice, because her natural voice was too high for Jasmine. Of the ones listed, she is the only voice actress who doesn't share her character's race.

Ming-Na Wen (born November 20, 1963) the speaking voice for her in "Mulan", "Mulan II" and in other portrayals, is a Chinese actress.

Lea Salonga, who sang for BOTH Jasmine and Mulan, is neither Arabian nor Chinese. Haha. She is Filipina.

Mary Costa (born April 5, 1930) was a white opera singer. She provided both the singing and speaking voices for Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty". However, because she began her career in 1953 and retired in 2000, Jennifer Hale, Erin Torpey, Cassidy Ladden, and Kate Higgins all let Aurora borrow their voices for various portrayals.

Although it was not a true sequel to "Sleeping Beauty", a short film about Princess Aurora (Erin Torpey) was released in 2007 as a part of "Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams". This film lacked a certain someone as a fan! Mary Costa said she didn't like the storyline and felt it didn't work.

Jodi Benson (born October 10, 1961) is a white actress and singer who just LOVES playing the role of Ariel. She has admitted to this. She provided the speaking and singing voices for Ariel in "The Little Mermaid", "The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea", and in other portrayals. She has sung at Disneyland Resort; sometimes dressed as Ariel.

Many people have noticed the somewhat striking similarities (race, or hair color, etc.) between not only most of the actresses and princesses mentioned above, but also between Adriana Caselotti (Snow White), Irene Bedard (Pocahontas), and Paige O'Hara (Belle), to name a few.

Answer: Four

The correct answer is four, and the names are Briar Rose, Jasmine, Mulan, and Rapunzel.

Briar Rose and Jasmine were probably obvious.

While the term "Briar Rose" may refer to a regular rose--and in fact, in the Disney version of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale, Princess Aurora's/Briar Rose's castle gets covered in rose thorns--there is also another flower with the name Briar Rose. I happen to think that briar roses are very beautiful, as well as befitting for Sleeping Beauty! Also called "Sweet Briar" or "Eglantine Rose" the briar rose is a pink flower and it also smells wonderful; it has a rich apple-like fragrance.

Another very fragrant flower, jasmine is often white. Jasmine is the national flower of Pakistan.

How does Mulan relate to a flower, you might wonder? Well, the name Hua Mulan actually translates to "flower wood orchid" and/or "magnolia." Disney's movie makes reference to these flowers during the scenes where Mulan is singing and when she is with her father. Common colors for them include pink, purple, and white.

Other names for the "Rapunzel" flower/plant include "Rampion Bellflower", "Rampion", and "Rover Bellflower". This plant has purple flowers. In the Grimm's version of this tale, this is the flower that Rapunzel's birth mother longed to eat when she was pregnant; she had such a desire for it, she said she would die if she couldn't get to taste it anymore. This caused Rapunzel's father to steal the plant from a witch's garden. The witch therefore stole the baby from her parents as soon as she was born. The witch is the one who named her and this is how Rapunzel got her name!

For the non-flower names:

Snow White's meaning is as it sounds. In the fairytale, Snow White's mother was sewing on a cold winter's night. She pricked her finger on a needle and her blood dropped onto the snow that was on her ebony (black) windowsill. Seeing the white snow made her wish that she could have a child with skin as white as snow--and so her wish was granted.

Cinderella comes from the French word Cendrillon, which means "little ashes" or "little ash girl."
In several versions of this story, "Cinderella" was merely a mean-spirited nickname. In some versions, her real name is Cindy, while her real name isn't mentioned in other versions.

Aurora means "the dawn" and is a synonym for early morning/sunrise. It is a befitting name for Sleeping Beauty for various reasons, for examples, the dawn can be pink just like her dress, and of course there is the movie quote: "They named her after the dawn for she filled their lives with sunshine."
Aurora is also the name of the Roman goddess for the dawn.

Speaking of Sleeping Beauty, that is simply the word Sleeping put in front of the word Beauty, which actually is the name of Belle. "Belle" is simply "beauty" or "beautiful" in French.
In French, Sleeping Beauty is "Belle au bois dormant."
Beauty and the Beast is "La Belle et la Bête."

Ariel is a Hebrew name and it means "lion of God." That doesn't exactly seem to make sense considering that Disney's Ariel is neither Hebrew nor a lion, but it's a pretty name nonetheless!

When it comes to the historical woman, "Pocahontas" was a Powhatan nickname and it meant "little mischief." Her real name was Matoaka, until her conversion, then she took the Judeo-Christian name Rebecca.

Tiana appears to come from a Greek word and it means "princess." How fitting! ;) At the same time, the name also appears to be another form of Christina, which means "follower of Christ." The latter Tiana is of Russian and Latin origin.

Answer: Mulan

Mulan never kisses Shang and he never kisses her in the first movie. They do kiss each other in "Mulan II".
Pocahontas and John Smith shared a pretty dramatic kiss (if not several kisses). Prince Phillip kissed Aurora to wake her from her enchanted slumber. Prince Charming kissed Cinderella's hand, they kissed shortly before she had to leave the ball, and then they kissed again at the end of the film.

Here are some other "only" comments, based on Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, and Rapunzel:

Snow White, Jasmine, Pocahontas, and Tiana are the only to NEVER be seen wearing pink dresses (this is including nightgowns, less fancy dresses, etc.) in the first films.
Likewise, Pocahontas and Rapunzel are the only ones to NOT wear dresses with any kind of blue, whether they were wholly or partly blue.

Snow White, Mulan, and Rapunzel are the only ones to have short hair. Snow White's is always short, Mulan cut her long hair off so that she could look more like a man, and even though Rapunzel has/had the longest hair, at the end, it gets cut off, so she had very short hair.

In the first films and sequels, Jasmine and Mulan are the only ones to wear any kind of pants (masculine or feminine).

Ariel and Jasmine are the only ones to be shown wearing outfits that expose their bellies (midriffs), but when Ariel is a human, she is never shown with her midriff exposed. It's just when she is a mermaid.

Pocahontas is the only one to have more than one love interest. It's hilarious (but sad too) to watch John Smith and John Rolfe fight over her in "Pocahontas II". When the dust settled, she lost her love for Smith and loved Rolfe.