The story behind Nintendo’s famous character Mario has been known for years but a new discovery has added an unexpected twist involving his brother Luigi. Nintendo’s popular character Mario took his name after a living individual, namely Mario Arnold Segale, an entrepreneur from the state of Washington who once let out his land to Nintendo Company in the ’80s. The name Mario eventually ended up becoming the title of the company’s character. It is now reported that Luigi, Mario’s fictional brother, also takes his name from a real person.A revelation from family historyGenealogist Elisabeth Zetland revealed that Mario Segale’s father’s name was Luigi when studying his family history in historical documents.In an interview with The Guardian, Zetland noted that there might not be a correlation between Mario and Luigi in the games and Mario Segale’s life. Nevertheless, it is a very interesting revelation when we consider the fame Mario and Luigi have achieved within the gaming industry.Luigi’s naming processThe originator of the Super Mario franchise, Shigeru Miyamoto, previously disclosed that Luigi got its name from the resemblance to a Japanese term that meant “similar.” It was fitting since Luigi was initially created as a twin brother of Mario who resembled him. Other suggestions for Luigi’s namesake include the possibility that it was inspired by a nearby restaurant when Nintendo was working on Mario. Still, no one had mentioned any real-life relation before.Immigrant story of the true MarioResearch done by Zetland is able to shed some light on the background of Luigi Segale, the father of Mario Segale. The man was born in the 19th century in Italy before immigrating to the United States in the beginning of the 20th century where he settled in Washington.Just like any other immigrant from Italy at the time, Luigi built his life through determination and hard work. According to records, he was a soldier during the First World War and also operated as a farmer afterwards. His life became stabilized through farming. Millions of other immigrants went through such experience when they immigrated to America.The emergence of Super MarioYears down the road, the offspring of Luigi named Mario Segale turned out to be a thriving entrepreneur in the fields of construction and real estate business. In the 1980s, the Japanese company Nintendo was leasing a space from Mario Segale as it was busy developing some early video games. According to a narrative in the book Game Over by David Sheff Nintendo workers came up with the idea of naming the character Mario due to some misunderstanding related to rent that was not paid.The coincidence that should not go unnoticedHowever, there are no guarantees about whether Nintendo had deliberately named their hero after Segale’s father. This can even be ruled out as Luigi Segale had already died when the fictional character Luigi made his appearance in the Super Mario Bros. series.Regardless, this similarity is hard to ignore. A connection which once seemed entirely fictional now turns out to have a real twist.The legend who remained humbleAs Mario Segale himself once put it, according to previous publications, he did not care for the fame associated with being related to the game character. Instead, Segale chose to be known for what he had accomplished throughout his life.
