Mario Segale

Mario Segali was the landlord of Nintendo's American branch in the early eighties. Nintendo's mascot Mario is named after him. The story goes that when the American branch was coming up with a name for the character, who was then known as Jumpman, Mario Segali stormed in and demanded his money. Knowing his name was Mario, the employees at Nintendo thought that it was a perfect name for their character.

Trivia

 * IGN's profile has an image of Mario Segali that they made up. It is actually a picture of one of their writers with a mustache drawn on. The publication Electronic Gaming Monthly, when mentioning Mario Segali, actually used IGN's image thinking that it was legit.