Mario Segali

From Freepedia

Mario Segali owned the offices of Nintendo of America's first location. At the time of their residence there, they (NOA) were coming up with a name for their now popular Jumpman, the star of Donkey Kong. Jumpman was a carpenter with a red cap, moustache and overalls.

While the creative team was working on a new name for the character, Minoru Arakawa, the president of Nintendo America, thought to himself upon seeing the Jumpman character, "Hey! He looks just like the landlord of our office!", and so Jumpman was called Mario. The name stuck.

Segali's opinion of this is unknown.