This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.

We’re always down for a random factoid here at Nintendo Village, and this latest one may be one of our favourites.

It turns out that our favourite bear and bird duo is named after former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi’s son and grandson. VGC founder and writer Andy Robinson, who worked on Banjo-Kazooie’s spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee at Playtonic with many former Rare devs, detailed the revelation on the site’s new blog:

“During my travels the topic of Yooka-Laylee, a spiritual successor to Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie games, would naturally come up, since I worked on it. And during one such conversation, a revelation was uncovered. With the blog section of this site launched, I can finally document it.
Former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi has a grandson called – funnily enough – Banjo Yamauchi. His son is named Katsuhito Yamauchi, or ‘Katsuhi’ for short. When you combine these names you end up with ‘Banjo-Katsuhi’ – and it’s not a coincidence. I know, because the original game’s developers confirmed it.”

Indeed they did! Steve Mayles, the man responsible for designing Banjo and his red-crested Breegul companion confirmed on Twitter that the Banjo part was definitely true, though he was ‘not so sure’ about Kazooie.

And here’s us all thinking they were just named for their musical instrument of choice! As Nintendo Life points out, Banjo and Katsuhito would go on to inherit a large part of Nintendo when Yamauchi passed away in 2013, eventually selling their stock for $1bn.

Source: VGC