About the name of shrek
The name Shrek is taken from the Yiddish word שרעק (pronounced Shreck) meaning 'fear', 'terror', or (in its closest sense) 'fright'. In German, "Schreck" has a similar meaning. The film features the voices of Mike Myers as a large, strong, peace-loving green ogre named Shrek, Cameron Diaz as the beautiful and feisty Princess Fiona, Eddie Murphy as a talkative donkey named Donkey, and John Lithgow as the villainous Lord Farquaad. Chris Farley was originally going to do the voice for Shrek and did at least half of the audio for the voice, but died before the project was completed. Dreamworks then re-cast the voice role to Mike Myers. After Myers had completed providing the voice for the character and the movie was well into production, he asked to be allowed to re-record all of his lines in a Scottish accent similar to the one his mother used when she told him bedtime stories. Myers had also employed this character voicing for a skit during his Saturday Night Live tenure, and also for the character Stuart MacKenzie in the motion picture So I Married an Axe Murderer.
