Hi,

Yes, Jumbo was the elephant from Africa, but so is the word Jambo. In Swahili, Jambo means hello. A greeting will often be 'Jambo, habari gani', meaning, 'Hello, how are you?' As often in the English language, the person who heard the word first, probably expressed, as the Africans usually do, in a great booming voice, 'JAMBO! with their arms open wide. It's easy to see that with the strange accent, this would be heard as 'Jumbo'. I rest my case.