[aitchnyu]

Tangential, Emden is the name of a warship that shelled Chennai (formerly Madras) in India, so Tamil and Malayalam languages today use the name for dominating and big.

[Reubachi]

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Stupid/tangential question, would a primarily hindi speaker from the north know the origin of this particular idiom? or is it more of a southern thing?

[ttepasse]

Both the old and the current warship are named after a city in northwestern Germany. It's one of the smallest cities in Germany, though.