Did Donkey Kong get his name because his creator believed “donkey” meant “stupid” in English and wanted to convey the impression that the character was a “Stupid Ape"
Executive summary
Shigeru Miyamoto has repeatedly said he chose “Donkey” to convey stubbornness and “Kong” to evoke a gorilla — not because he thought “donkey” meant “stupid” in English — and multiple fact-checks and interviews support that account (see Snopes and Miyamoto interviews cited in fan and wiki coverage) [1] [2]. Alternative origin stories — a mistranslation from “Monkey Kong,” a garbled phone call, or an intent to call the ape “stupid” — circulate among fans and secondary sites, but contemporary reporting and Miyamoto’s own explanations remain the primary sources cited by most overviews [3] [4].
1. Miyamoto’s explanation: “Donkey” = stubborn, “Kong” = gorilla
Shigeru Miyamoto, the game’s creator, has explained that he selected “donkey” to suggest stubbornness and used “Kong” to evoke a large ape; that account is summarized in long-form treatments and fact-checking pieces that cite Miyamoto’s statements directly [1] [2]. Wikipedia’s character entry repeats the same explanation: Miyamoto “designed him as a dumb, humorous antagonist, named donkey to convey stubborn and kong to imply gorilla” [2]. Both threads point to intention rather than error in the naming.
2. The “stupid ape” interpretation: where it comes from
A persistent fan interpretation — that Miyamoto thought “donkey” meant “dumb” and thus intended “Stupid Ape” — appears across forums, fandom pages and some retrospectives and is sometimes phrased as “donkey” meaning “dumb or stupid” [4] [5]. These sources show the idea is popular in fan lore and on discussion boards, but they are not primary evidence that Miyamoto meant to label the character as “stupid” in a pejorative sense [4] [5].
3. The mistranslation and “Monkey Kong” myths
Multiple explanations claiming the name resulted from a mistranslation, a bad phone line, or Americans mishearing “Monkey Kong” have circulated for decades. Snopes reviewed those claims and concluded there’s no solid evidence for a mistranslation; instead, Miyamoto’s repeated account that “donkey” was chosen for stubbornness stands as the credible origin story [1]. Retro-focused and fan retrospectives still retell the “Monkey Kong” alternate-tale as a plausible-sounding myth, but they treat it as theory rather than documented fact [3].
4. How reporting and fan sites amplify different takes
Encyclopedic entries (Wikipedia, MarioWiki, fandoms) and mainstream summaries tend to repeat Miyamoto’s stated rationale while noting fan theories as alternate lore; tabloids and list pieces often foreground the quirkier anecdote that “donkey” might have been intended to mean “stupid” or was a typo [2] [6] [7]. Snopes explicitly debunks the mistranslation angle and frames the “donkey = stubborn” interpretation as Miyamoto’s own explanation [1]. The media dynamic: primary-source explanation sits beside compelling myths that spread because they’re memorable.
5. What the sources don’t say (limitations and gaps)
Available sources do not provide a verbatim transcript or contemporary memo from the 1981 localization process proving whether “Monkey Kong” was ever actually used in internal documents; claims about misheard phone calls or fax errors are treated as fan lore in the reporting I have [3] [4]. There is no provided archive evidence here showing Miyamoto explicitly meant “stupid” as opposed to “stubborn,” nor any internal Nintendo document in the supplied results that contradicts Miyamoto’s public statements [1] [2].
6. Bottom line and competing viewpoints
The most authoritative account in the available reporting is Miyamoto’s: “donkey” to convey stubbornness and “Kong” to suggest an ape [1] [2]. Fan theories — that the name came from “monkey” or that Miyamoto thought “donkey” meant “stupid” — persist because they’re plausible and entertaining, and they appear on many fan pages and retrospectives [3] [4]. The credible mainstream fact-check (Snopes) and encyclopedia-style summaries align with Miyamoto’s explanation and treat the mistranslation stories as myths [1] [2].