I've been a huge fan of The Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind, and probably would have been playing Daggerfall and Arena if I owned a computer at that point. Either way, it's hard not to be blown away by how much Bethesda packs into every one of those games. I always knew there were a bunch of cultural influences, but it never occurred to me to check some of the slang in the game.
For example, Dunmer (or Dark Elves) call the player's character, 'Sera' throughout the game. They will say things like, 'Hail Sera!' as the character wanders through towns. It always seemed like a unique word to the world and helped entrench the player in the epic scope of the game.
This morning, for some reason, I decided to Google the word 'Sera' and discovered a link to the Arabian word Seera. Turns out a 'seera' is an Arabic word that describes a biography (i.e. The Seera of Prophet Mohamed) but can also describe the journey through life. And of course, Morrowind is the story of the player's journey to his destiny. What a perfect way to marry a real life word many would not be familiar with to a concept in the game!
Writers tend to do this on a regular basis. A good example of this (as he is with many other interesting writing techniques) is Robert Jordan. An easy example is Jordan giving the Dark One a real name of Shai'tan, which is similar to Shaitan (or the Devil) in Islam. Jordan drew off real figures and names scores of times through the Wheel of Time, including a very interesting homage to General Robert E. Lee in The Great Captain Gareth Bryne.
Either way, I'm even more impressed with Bethesda than I was before, and wonder what other cultural Easter Eggs they've included in their worldbuilding.
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