'Wii' before Wii
by Ross Miller 
on Aug 13th 2008 10:40PM
It's been well over two years since Nintendo unveiled its
"revolutionary" console name (2 years, 3 months and 17 days to be precise). But, much like truthiness, it'd be silly to think it had been the first time the term had been used. Just ask Wii Yatani, a 26-year old New Yorker who experienced all the
oh-so clever urine puns decades before the House of Mario. MTV's Stephen Totilo has a
profile on Yatani and how the waggle-inducing name has changed his name's perspective.
Additionally, according to Totilo, there were over 1900 pre-Nintendo Wii references in the newspaper and magazine database
Nexis. From a Singaporean record-setting stair climber to a Papa New Guinea lieutenant, Wii has traveled the globe. And although Nintendo hasn't attributed an exact definition, Yatani's Wii is derived from two Kanji characters meaning "universe" and "willpower."
