The title Katamari Damacy is a transliteration of "Katamari Tamashii" (塊魂). "Katamari" is japanese for "lump/clump" or a "mass", and "Tamashii" is "soul/spirit", which roughly translates the game's title as "clump of souls", in a context of "team spirit." The two kanji-letters also look similar, using similar right-side letters (akin to 鬼). When asked about the title, Keita Takahashi (director and producer for the first game and following sequels) said in an interview with Dengeki Online "It just popped into my head suddenly, and this is what it has been from the beginning."
According to character designer Gregg Mayles on Twitter, after the announcement that King K. Rool would be in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a character that Gregg had named and designed the actions of, he revealed that the character was original called "KOMMANDER K. ROOL" and that Donkey Kong Country was originally to be called MONKEY MAYHEM. He also mentioned that the "K." in K. Rool does not actually stand for anything and the name itself is only intended to be a play on the word "cruel", though he joked that the initial could stand for something mundane and off-character, such as "Keith".
In addition, Gregg's brother Steve, who designed the look and visual design for the character, also revealed that the programmers thought King K. Rool was "too big" and too taxing on the game's memory, and thus several frames of the character's animation had to be dropped as a result.
In the Japanese release, an enemy that looks strikingly similar to Donkey Kong named Guerilla in the English release is named ドソキーユング, or "Dosokī Yungu" when Romanized. This character's Japanese name is a joke based on the Katakana writing system, as Dosokī Yungu's Katakana is visually similar to Donkey Kong's Katakana ドンキーコング, but actually has two different, yet similar-looking characters that are swapped out to make Dosokī Yungu (the first ン is changed to ソ, and コ is changed to ユ). Just like how the enemy resembles Donkey Kong, but is not actually him, the name resembles "Donkey Kong", but is not actually read that way.
"Dosokī Yungu" itself could possibly be a reference to the 1949 film Mighty Joe Young, which was produced by the same creative team that made the 1933 film King Kong, one of the main influences for the creation of Donkey Kong.
Contrary to popular belief that Vile's character design was inspired by bounty hunter Boba Fett from the Star Wars franchise, and that his Japanese name VAVA (ヴァヴァ) was changed to Vile for the international release out of fear of a lawsuit from Lucasfilm (due to the letters "B" and "V" sometimes being used interchangeably in Japanese causing the name to appear too similar to "Boba"), Capcom character designer TOM-PON stated in a 2012 interview that VAVA's design was actually inspired by the character Bubba Zanetti (ババ・ザネッティ, transliterated as Baba Zanetti) from the 1979 film "Mad Max". Coincidentally, as VAVA is renamed Vile outside Japan, this would also result in Dr. Weil's name being transliterated as such from Dr. Vile in order to avoid confusion with him.
In Mega Man X8, Vile's primary color scheme was intentionally changed from purple to green, which more closely resembles Boba Fett, and may be a reference to their similarities.
Located in the Southwest region of Iki Island is a rocky island called "Saruiwa", which translates to "monkey rock", the word 'saru' meaning monkey and the word 'iwa' meaning rock. It is named as such because the rock formation resembles a monkey. This island is also named after and based on the Saruiwa rock formation found on the real Iki Island in Japan, though it should be noted that the in-game location and real-life location do not match up geographically.
According to page 74 of the official Nintendo Power Player's Guide, Conker refers to Rodent as "Private Milquetoast". Whether this is Rodent's actual surname or not, Milquetoast is slang for a meek or timid person, which describes Rodent’s personality.
There is a Vietnamese noodle shop in the game called inPhởmous. This is a fun play on the words for the Vietnamese noodle dish of Phở and the title of the game.
Competitive players of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl nickname Rocko's grounded neutral strong attack, "Scream!", "Joe Biden" after a mondegreen interpreting Rocko's scream of "You're fired!" (a reference to the episode Power Trip, where he gets promoted to the boss of the comic book shop he works at and becomes mad with power) as "Joe Biden!"
NASB community manager Thaddeus Crews responded to a now-deleted tweet about the mondegreen with "canon", and later posted a stock render of Rocko with the caption "Joe Biden".
"Spelunker taishitsu" (Eng: Constitution of a spelunker) is a Japanese idiom referring to someone who is easily injured, commonly used in sports. This originates from Spelunker, which is widely popular in Japan as a "kusoge" (Japanese for "crappy game") specifically for the protagonist's frail nature and sometimes ridiculous death conditions.
In Japan, Slippy Toad's father, Beltino, is called ベルツィーノ(Berutsīno) which comes from ベルツノガエル (Berutsunogaeru), meaning Bert's frog or Belted frog. This is also the Japanese name for the Argentine horned frog, better known as a Pacman frog. Funny enough, after being alluded to on the Japanese Star Fox 64 website, Beltino would go on to have a major role in Star Fox: Assault, which was developed by Namco, the creators of Pac-Man.
In Japan, Andrew Oikonny's name is アンドリュー・オイッコニー (Andoryū Oikkonī).
His surname seems to be a pun on the Japanese word for nephew, 甥っ子 (Oi-kko). Obviously this is a pun/reference to the fact that Andross is canonically Andrew's uncle.
In the "Star Wolf Returns!" ending of Star Fox Command, it is said that after Krystal gained a new life as a bounty hunter named "Kursed" ("Krazoa" in the Japanese version) in another galaxy, she eventually came across Fox again on a planet named "Kew", although it's said that Fox doesn't recognize her.
The Japanese name for Kew is "キュー" (Kyū), which is essentially how "Q" is written in Japanese. This makes it more clear that Kew was actually named after Q-Games, Dylan Cuthbert's company that assisted in Star Fox Command's development.
One of the more enigmatic characters in Star Fox 64 is the tanuki or raccoon dog that only appears in its training mode. On the official Japanese Star Fox 64 website, Slippy reveals that his name is ヤル・デ・ポン (Yaru De Pon), and that he is the president of Space Dynamics, the manufacturers of the Arwing and other vehicles the Star Fox team utilizes in their missions.
His surname seems to reference the du Pont family (ポン spells both "Pon" and "Pont"), a wealthy American family who made their fortune selling gunpowder, and later chemicals and motor vehicles. A popular rumor is that Henry A. du Pont secretly sold gunpowder to the Confederacy during the Civil War; fittingly enough, Slippy implies that Yaru de Pon is involved in "shady weapon deals", suggesting that he might be supplying Andross' forces as well.
Yaru de Pon is also notably the only character in the original Star Fox 64 to not have any voice acting. This was addressed in its 3DS remake, Star Fox 64 3D, where he is now properly voiced by Jay Ward (who also voices Wolf O'Donnell in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as the Nintendo Switch version of Starlink: Battle for Atlas) in the English version, and Kunpei Sakamoto in the Japanese version.
Androsa, the weaponized flying fortress that appears as Star Fox Zero's first boss, is modeled after the Rafflesia arnoldii, or corpse flower, the largest (and also smelliest) known flower in the world.
This reference becomes much more clear when you consider its Japanese name, サルレシア (Sarureshia), a mashup of サル (Saru) and ラフレシア (Rafureshia), the Japanese words for Monkey and Rafflesia respectively.
In a 2012 Iwata Asks discussion, Nintendo president and HAL Laboratory alum Satoru Iwata revealed that HAL's name was intended as a riff on IBM, an American computer company who were omnipresent in the tech industry when HAL was founded in 1980. According to Iwata, the idea was that each of the letters in "HAL" were just before each of the letters in "IBM" in the Latin alphabet, thus conveying the fact that HAL were always "one step ahead of IBM."
The Myconid is a race of intelligent fungus creatures appearing in Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei. This is notable as while the concept of mushroom creatures is well known in pop culture, the specific term “Myconid” was specifically invented for the fantasy tabletop role playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
The song "SOFT LANDING ON THE BODY" features a section in which the BPM doubles from 159 to 318 for seemingly no reason. According to composer Kiyotaka Sugimoto, this was due to an engine bug created by the song going to a 7/8 time signature, and the glitch was kept in when the game released. In honor of this mistake, any sudden large BPM changes or gimmicks have earned the nickname "Soflan" by BEMANI fans (a portmanteau of "Soft" and "Landing"). The "Soflan" moniker became canon to the series when beatmaniaIIDX 27 Heroic Verse included it as part of its Notes Radar parameters, signifying the quantity of BPM changes and their severity.
The fly species in Yars' Revenge, the yar, and their home planet, Razak, are reversals of then-Atari CEO Ray Kassar's name. Creator Howard Scott Warshaw told a marketing executive this was the name's origin, but did not inform them that Kassar was unaware of the name's origins, leading them to believe the name was coined by Kassar and preventing them from informing him and getting the name changed.
Following the completion of the anime series "Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School" and the video game Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, Danganronpa series writer Kazutaka Kodaka started thinking about how he wanted to create his own development company where he can do new things. He discussed the idea with composer Masafumi Takada and character designer Rui Komatsuzaki, who were also interested in the idea: Takada would be the one to found Too Kyo Games, due to having been involved in the launch of other companies.
Kodaka also invited other people to join the company, including Kotaro Uchikoshi (director and scenario writer of the Zero Escape series), Shimadoriru (Danganronpa illustrator), Takumi Nakazawa (director and co-writer of the Infinity series), and Yoichirou Koizumi (Danganronpa novelist). Kodaka, Takada, Komatsuzaki and Uchikoshi each serve as the core members of the company, with Kodaka serving as both its representative and CEO.
Additionally, the company's name is a wordplay on "Tokyo", where the company is based, and "kyo", the Japanese word for crazy: hence, the company's name literally means "Too Crazy Games".
One of the Anglar Army's commanders in Star Fox Command is a hammerhead shark looking character named "Zako", who's also a subordinate of Octoman.
His Japanese name, however, is シャーマン (Shāman), which can either translate to just "Shaman" or even "Sherman". Looking at the English text provided in the official Japanese Star Fox Command guidebook, it seems the intended name is "Sharman". It's fairly obvious that his name is combination of "Shark" and "Man", and that it's also meant to complement and mirror Octoman's name.
The title Katamari Damacy is a transliteration of "Katamari Tamashii" (塊魂). "Katamari" is japanese for "lump/clump" or a "mass", and "Tamashii" is "soul/spirit", which roughly translates the game's title as "clump of souls", in a context of "team spirit." The two kanji-letters also look similar, using similar right-side letters (akin to 鬼). 
In the Japanese release, an enemy that looks strikingly similar to Donkey Kong named Guerilla in the English release is named ドソキーユング, or "Dosokī Yungu" when Romanized. This character's Japanese name is a joke based on the Katakana writing system, as Dosokī Yungu's Katakana is visually similar to Donkey Kong's Katakana ドンキーコング, but actually has two different, yet similar-looking characters that are swapped out to make Dosokī Yungu (the first ン is changed to ソ, and コ is changed to ユ). Just like how the enemy resembles Donkey Kong, but is not actually him, the name resembles "Donkey Kong", but is not actually read that way.
Contrary to popular belief that Vile's character design was inspired by bounty hunter Boba Fett from the Star Wars franchise, and that his Japanese name VAVA (ヴァヴァ) was changed to Vile for the international release out of fear of a lawsuit from Lucasfilm (due to the letters "B" and "V" sometimes being used interchangeably in Japanese causing the name to appear too similar to "Boba"), Capcom character designer TOM-PON stated in a 2012 interview that VAVA's design was actually inspired by the character Bubba Zanetti (ババ・ザネッティ, transliterated as Baba Zanetti) from the 1979 film "Mad Max". Coincidentally, as VAVA is renamed Vile outside Japan, this would also result in Dr. Weil's name being transliterated as such from Dr. Vile in order to avoid confusion with him.
Located in the Southwest region of Iki Island is a rocky island called "Saruiwa", which translates to "monkey rock", the word 'saru' meaning monkey and the word 'iwa' meaning rock. It is named as such because the rock formation resembles a monkey. This island is also named after and based on the Saruiwa rock formation found on the real Iki Island in Japan, though it should be noted that the in-game location and real-life location do not match up geographically.
According to page 74 of the official Nintendo Power Player's Guide, Conker refers to Rodent as "Private Milquetoast". Whether this is Rodent's actual surname or not, Milquetoast is slang for a meek or timid person, which describes Rodent’s personality.
Competitive players of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl nickname Rocko's grounded neutral strong attack, "Scream!", "Joe Biden" after a mondegreen interpreting Rocko's scream of "You're fired!" (a reference to the episode Power Trip, where he gets promoted to the boss of the comic book shop he works at and becomes mad with power) as "Joe Biden!"
In Japan, Slippy Toad's father, Beltino, is called ベルツィーノ(Berutsīno) which comes from ベルツノガエル (Berutsunogaeru), meaning Bert's frog or Belted frog. This is also the Japanese name for the Argentine horned frog, better known as a Pacman frog. Funny enough, after being alluded to on the Japanese Star Fox 64 website, Beltino would go on to have a major role in Star Fox: Assault, which was developed by Namco, the creators of Pac-Man.
In the "Star Wolf Returns!" ending of Star Fox Command, it is said that after Krystal gained a new life as a bounty hunter named "Kursed" ("Krazoa" in the Japanese version) in another galaxy, she eventually came across Fox again on a planet named "Kew", although it's said that Fox doesn't recognize her.
One of the more enigmatic characters in Star Fox 64 is the tanuki or raccoon dog that only appears in its training mode. On the official Japanese Star Fox 64 website, Slippy reveals that his name is ヤル・デ・ポン (Yaru De Pon), and that he is the president of Space Dynamics, the manufacturers of the Arwing and other vehicles the Star Fox team utilizes in their missions. 
Androsa, the weaponized flying fortress that appears as Star Fox Zero's first boss, is modeled after the Rafflesia arnoldii, or corpse flower, the largest (and also smelliest) known flower in the world. 
One of the Anglar Army's commanders in Star Fox Command is a hammerhead shark looking character named "Zako", who's also a subordinate of Octoman.