Nintendo might be a gaming giant, but did you know about the true meaning behind its iconic name?
The brand was started back in 1889 in Japan by Fusajiro Yamauchi who created handmade playing cards.
It wasn’t actually until the 1970s that the company branched out electronics, with video game Donkey Kong being released in 1981.
Do you know the true meaning behind the brand? (PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images)
Of course, the gaming brand is now a household name, having gone on to release all kinds of video games, consoles and other devices.
In fact, as of March last year, the company had sold more than 5.5 billion video games and over 836 million hardware units across the globe.
From Mario to The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon and Animal Crossing, although you might have played on a number of these games and consoles, many of us aren’t familiar with the origins of the brand, and where the name Nintendo actually came from.
According to Playbite, Nintendo is roughly translated to mean, ‘leave luck to heaven’ or ‘the temple of free hanafuda’.
They explain: “‘Hanafuda’ refers to the playing cards that the company originally produced.
“This name represented Yamauchi’s philosophy towards business and life. By entrusting fate to the higher powers, Nintendo embarked on a journey that would eventually revolutionize the gaming world.
“The name symbolizes faith in destiny, an ethos that seems to have guided Nintendo through its evolution from a small playing card company to a titan of the video game industry.”
While it’s not confirmed that this is the true meaning behind the name Nintendo, over on Reddit, other gamers discussed the theory.
One wrote: “Allegedly it means ‘Leave luck to heaven’ and the literal translation according to a Japanese friend of mine is pretty close. This has never been confirmed by Nintendo though.”
While another said: “Nintendo was originally a company who produced Japanese playing cards, so the meaning of their name is likely connected to luck vs. skill when it comes to gambling.”
And a third added: “It’s a translation of Nintendo’s kanji name: 任天堂 (Nintendō).
“任 (nin) means ‘responsibility’, ‘obligation’, ‘duty’, or ‘entrust to’.
“天堂 (tendō) means ‘heaven’.
“So a more literal translation of Nintendo would be ‘entrust to heaven’ or ‘leave it to heaven’. I guess the ‘it’ in the latter is implied to be ‘luck’.”
The brand has become a household name (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
However, there’s one other translation to take into account.
According to Kotaku, the ‘ten’ in Nintendo could refer to something else. While it’s typically viewed as translating to ‘heaven’, this may not have been the true meaning.
They explain: “As mentioned in The History of Nintendo by Nintendo Dream writers Florent Gorges and Isao Yamazaki, ‘ten’ (天) contains the same kanji character as used in the word for the mythical being Tengu (天狗).
“The History of Nintendo 1889-1980: From Playing-Cards to Game & Watch explains that when Nintendo was originally founded in the late 19th century, then company president Yamauchi was brainstorming ways to get his company out of a hanafuda sales slump.
“The company’s pricey cards were not doing well, so Yamauchi came up with the idea of selling lower quality cards under the name of ‘Tengu’.”
They go on to explain that for those who regularly play cards, “’ten’ meant ‘Tengu’ which meant ‘gambling’.”
LADbible has reached out to Nintendo for comment.
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