Gaming Urban Legends Wiki
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The "Monkey Kong" legend is an urban legend revolving around the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong.

Description

There were rumors floating about in the early 1980s that the name "Donkey Kong" was the result of a translation error between Japanese and English. This is because the name seemed odd. The Kong part obviously referenced the 1933 film King Kong, but there were no donkeys to be seen. It was hypothesized that the game was meant to be called Monkey Kong but the name was lost in translation. In reality, the game's creator Shigeru Miyamoto thought the word "donkey" was a near-synonym of "stubborn", as donkeys can be quite stubborn in real life. Thus, the name Donkey Kong was meant to showcase the titular ape as a stubborn brute.

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