Aladdin is a young man in a tale from The Arabian Nights, an old collection of stories. A magician uses him to steal a lamp from a secret cave packed with jewels. Aladdin keeps the lamp. When he rubs it, a genie — a spirit with magic power — appears and, in the line English speakers all know, says “Your wish is my command,” meaning he will do what Aladdin asks. Disney later made a bright, singing film, so many children picture a smiling hero in a palace. Though actually the old story is stranger and less sweet than the cartoon, and Aladdin is the boy with the lamp, not the genie inside it. The name comes from Arabic and means “nobility of the faith.”