As I have been in the library for the past 18 hours, my brain cannot retain anymore anthropology theories, I started to wonder what is the last name of Mario? For the sake of procrastination, I went online and look up Mario’s last name and the answer surprised me.
You may think Mario’s name is like Micky Mouse and it does not have a last name. Well, even Hello Kitty has a last name. Her name was normally called Kitty White but that is another story and will be told another time.
But first, why Mario?
Mario is an iconic fictional character in the Mario video game franchise owned by Nintendo and created by Shigeru Miyamoto, Japanese video game designer. He is depicted as a short, pudgy, Italian plumber who resides in the Mushroom Kingdom and his ultimate goal in life is to rescue Princess Peach from the villain Bowser.
He was first appeared in the Donkey Kong series as an unnamed character. Only later in the English version that he was named Jumpman. According to source, Miyamoto wanted to name the character “Mr. Video” to signify that he would soon be in different video games.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/noupe/2012/06/donkey-kong-arcade.png
However, the name Mario is borrowed from a real man who has Italian heritage. A man name Mario Segale rented out a warehouse that serves as Nintendo’s U.S. headquarters in the early 1980s. At that time, Nintendo of America was facing some financial crisis and was preparing to launch the first Donkey Kong. The landlord confronted the then-president Minoru Arakawa demanding for rent. Then they fell into a heated argument in which the Nintendo employees eventually convinced Segale he would be paid by naming the character in the game Mario after him.
There is another version of the story, which says that it was solely because the landlord shows resemblance with the character they created. Whichever story is the truth, this landlord is now famous worldwide.
This discovery may intrigue people’s curiosity about the real man’s appearance. According to an article written by Benj Edwards on Technologizer, Mario keeps his profile low. When Edwards attempted to email a close associate of his, the person replies, “Mario values his privacy over money, which is why he hasn’t accepted any for being “Mario”. He is just a normal, wealth (self-made), semi-grumpy old man. But we thought we would let you know that he is really not particularly fascinating! You would probably be disappointed if you ever saw him. He does not even wear overalls! But he is not too tall and he does wear suspenders.” Unfortunately, you can only paint his face in your own head.
In the same article, Edwards quoted a 1993 Seattle Times article about what Segale actually thinks about inspiring the name that was being used for a game that has sold more than 100 million copies. He only simply replied,
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930617&slug=1706910
Mario’s last name
After knowing the origin of the name Mario, we can proceed on discussing what is his last name. It is Mario. Yes, I know it may seem confusing but his full name is “Mario Mario” and twin brother is “Mario Luigi”.
According to an article by gameinfromer , during an interview with Miyamoto, he said,
In conclusion, there are three Marios in between the two of them: “Mario Mario” and “Mario Luigi”.
