1980s court documents show Nintendo considered 'Kong Dong' and 'Kong the Kong' before settling on the name Donkey Kong

In the early 1980s Universal was looking to get in on the videogames market, and its hard-nosed president Sid Sheinberg particularly noted the success of Nintendo's Donkey Kong. Sheinberg was a lawyer by training and, looking at Donkey Kong, he saw a potential infringement on Universal's copyright for King Kong: nevermind the name, both had gorillas and a damsel in distress.

As with any legal case on this scale, the documentation around it is voluminous and held in the National Archives. Several years ago gaming historian Norman Caruso visited the archives to look through, and postedOne amusing wrinkle about the case was that creator Shigeru Miyamoto, honest to perhaps a fault, admitted he'd considered the name King Kong at first, though this was offset by the argument that in Japan"kong" was used as a generic term for gorilla.

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You're not going to believe what Nintendo almost called Donkey KongNintendo’s great ape already has a pretty peculiar name but there was a long list of alternatives and some of them are pretty hilarious.
Source: MetroUK - 🏆 13. / 82 Read more »