Shere Khan

Shere Khan is a fictional Bengal tiger in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book and its adaptations, in which he is often portrayed as the main antagonist, itself an exaggeration of his role in the original stories, which he only appears in a third of. The name roughly translates as tiger ruler, with shere being the Persian word for 'tiger'), and khan being used as a title of distinction among the Turco-Mongol peoples, usually meaning chief or ruler. According to The Kipling Society, the name "show[s] that he is the chief among tigers".

Shere Khan is named after Afghan Emperor Sher Shah Suri.