Franchise: Kirby

In a released concept art in Kirby's Dream Collection, an unknown knight was shown with red butterfly-like wings. Since this artwork was in Meta Knight’s section, many presumed it to be Meta Knight's beta design. However, in a Nintendo Dream magazine interview with Shinya Kumazaki, he confirmed that the design was originally for an entirely different knight that would have appeared in the cancelled Kirby GameCube game. This design would later be used for Morpho Knight in Kirby Star Allies, ​​​​except with a different sword.

A prequel to the Kirby series titled "Kid Kirby" was being developed for the SNES by DMA Design, now Rockstar North. The game was a platformer featuring a younger Kirby which would've utilized the SNES Mouse peripheral, however the game was canceled supposedly due to the mouse not selling well.

When Donkey Kong became popular, Nintendo was sued by American film company Universal Studios over allegations that Donkey Kong was plagiarizing their 1933 film King Kong. Lawyer John Kirby, defending Nintendo, pointed out that Universal was aware of and had previously argued in court that the story of King Kong was in the public domain due to the film's novelization, which came out before the film and marked the first non-promotional appearance of the character, failing to have its copyright notice renewed. As a result, Universal lost the case. Nintendo lavishly awarded Kirby by taking him, his wife and some associates to dinner at a fancy Manhattan restaurant, giving him a sailboat named "Donkey Kong" and the exclusive rights to the name Donkey Kong for sailboats as a strange show of gratitude.

In a 2011 interview with Game Informer, Shigeru Miyamoto stated that "Kirby" was one of many candidates on a list of names that were proposed for the then-in development video game character, and upon seeing it, he recalled John Kirby and felt that a connection between the two would be amusing. However, the name was picked not as a tribute to the lawyer, but rather because the harsh-sounding nature of the name was a comedic contrast to the character's soft, cute design.

The North American box arts for Kirby games are edited to give Kirby an angry-looking scowl. According to former Nintendo of America localization director Leslie Swan and former marketing employee Krysta Yang in 2025, these edits were not intended to make Kirby look angry, but determined to fight off large, tough opponents. This change was made in an effort to help Kirby appeal to a wider audience, including tween and teen demographics who were drawn to tougher-looking characters. According to Swan, Nintendo eventually stopped marketing Kirby like this so their games could use the same artwork across all regions.