Origin of "King Kong" (Chinese? Courting frogs?)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/9/06, Page Stephens <hpst at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Has anyone except me ever heard the story that the computer game Donkey
> Kong was called Donkey Kong because it was originally called Stupid Monkey
> in Japanese and mistranlated into English as Donkey Kong?
>
> I doubt that this is true but a friend of mine swears that it is.

It's a common urban legend. Snopes says "false".

http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/donkeykong.asp


--Ben Zimmer