A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : NAME GAME : In Mongolia, <i> Urga</i> Is Close to <i> Eden</i> in the Dictionary

Although Hollywood Pictures and Propaganda Films decided not to use their original title, “Close to Eden,” for the movie that eventually was called “A Stranger Among Us,” executives at Miramax Films think they know a good discarded title when they see one.

And they needed one for “Urga,” a film by Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov that Miramax is distributing. So “Urga” will be released this fall as . . . “Close to Eden.”

The film is a story about a young couple set in China’s Inner Mongolia. Mikhalkov is the director of “Dark Eyes,” which won the Golden Lion award at the 1990 Venice Film Festival.

Gerry Rich, Miramax’s senior vice president of marketing, said it was important for Miramax to come up with a new title for “Urga,” which is a hard-to-translate Mongolian term related to a mating ritual. But, Rich insists, “It’s a complete coincidence that we came up with that title. I just found out about the other film. We knew nothing about it.”

But Howard Rosenman, who produced “A Stranger Among Us,” says that Miramax can’t use “Close to Eden.” “We’re using that title in our foreign releases,” he says. “They’re going to have to come up with something else.”

According to Rich, though, Miramax is within its rights to use the title. “We did a clearance search and we’re using that title,” he says, referring to searches that producers and studios conduct when titling movies to make sure nobody else has registered the same title. “We went through the legal process and made a determination based on the lawyers’ findings. We’re using that title.”