Mario (マリオ, Mario ?), also known as Super Mario and originally Jumpman (ジャンプマン, Janpuman ?), is a video game character created by Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. He is Nintendo's mascot, and he is one of most well known characters in video game history, appearing in hundreds of games, many of them bestsellers. Mario first appeared in Donkey Kong, and appeared alongside his brother Luigi for the first time in Mario Bros. As of September 2005, over 184 million games featuring Mario have been sold , making it by far the best selling franchise in the history of video games.
Mario's full name is believed to be Mario Mario, due to him and Luigi frequently referred to as the "Mario Bros." According to creator Shigeru Miyamoto and both the licensed film, and the television series based on the games, their surname is indeed Mario, but this issue is rarely dealt with in official Nintendo materials.
Mario was named after Mario Segali, the landlord of Nintendo of America's Seattle home in 1981. When a Japanese copy of the new Donkey Kong game arrived, the NOA staff had to translate the story and character names into English. The lead character, known in Japan as "Jumpman" needed an English name. After interrupting a meeting discussing this issue, Segali blasted the president of NOA, Minoru Arakawa, because the firm's rent was overdue. By the time of Donkey Kong Junior's production, Jumpman had officially become Mario.
In the games, the current voice actor for Mario is Charles Martinet. Ronald B. Ruben voiced him in the PC game Mario Teaches Typing. In cartoons, he has been voiced by Walker Boone, Captain Lou Albano, Peter Cullen and Tōru Furuya.
Despite his lengthy history, Mario is in many ways an undeveloped character with many details of his accepted biography having been created through a complex lore spawned from the imaginations of comic book artists, cartoon writers, and fans.