Luigi
The events leading to the creation of Luigi began in 1982, during the making of Donkey Kong. The Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto had created Mario (who used to be "Jumpman") hoping that he would be able to show the character in many different pars in future games. Miyamoto had been given ideas by the game Joust to create a game where two players can play at the same time. This was the cause of his development of the game Mario Bros. in 1983, with Luigi as the brother of Mario and the second playable character. The name Luigi is said to have been inspired by a pizza business near the head office of Nintendo of America in Redmond, Washington, called "Mario & Luigi's". Miyamoto noticed that the word ruiji means "similar" in the Japanese language, and that Luigi was designed to have the same size, shape and gameplay of Mario.