You may have noticed something familiar about Captain Olimar's name. Such as, "Hey, it has all the letters from 'Mario'... plus an 'L'." This is because the name "Olimar" comes directly from his Japanese name: Orimaa (typically, R's become L's, and a long "A" becomes "ar"). Using the Japanese spelling, "O-RI-MA-A", we find that his name was actually "MA-RI-O" backwards, with a long vowel thrown in at the end for color.