Which lawyer inspired Kirby's final name?

The lawyer who inspired Kirby's final name was John Kirby, an American attorney who defended Nintendo in a major copyright case.

In the early development of Kirby's first game, the character was temporarily called Popopo, and the project itself was known as Twinkle Popo. The name Kirby was later selected as a tribute to John Joseph Kirby Jr., who represented Nintendo during its legal dispute with Universal Studios over Donkey Kong.

Kirby's name is therefore not a reference to Nintendo executives such as Hiroshi Yamauchi or Minoru Arakawa. John Kirby was not the character's creator or designer; that role belongs chiefly to Masahiro Sakurai, who developed the character at HAL Laboratory. The tribute linked the new mascot to an attorney whose work had helped protect Nintendo's position in the Donkey Kong dispute.

Kirby's naming history also explains why early development references can seem inconsistent. The character's rounded design existed before the final name was settled, and the prototype concept was deliberately simple. The familiar name was attached later, before the 1992 release of Kirby's Dream Land, giving the franchise its lasting identity.