Super Mario: The story behind Luigi's name

New research sheds light on an interesting story regarding the origin of Luigi's name, Super Mario's brother.

While Nintendo states that the name Luigi was chosen because it rhymes with the Japanese word ruigi, a MyHeritage researcher, Elisabeth Zetland, discovered that the father of Mario Segale, the businessman from Washington state, was named Luigi.

Luigi Maria Segale was born in 1886 in Italy and immigrated to the USA in 1909. His son, Mario, was born in 1934 and later rented a warehouse to Nintendo, inspiring Shigeru Miyamoto's team to name the character Super Mario.

Zetland stated that it is probably a coincidence, but perhaps one of the biggest in the history of the video game industry.