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Mario is the main character and protagonist of the long-running and highly successful Mario franchise. He was created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and serves as the main mascot of Nintendo. Mario made his first appearance as the protagonist of the arcade game Donkey Kong, released in 1981. Since Super Mario Bros., his trademark abilities have been his jumping and stomping powers, with which he defeats most of his enemies, and his ability to gain powers with a plethora of items, such as the Super Mushroom, the Fire Flower, and the Super Star. Games have usually portrayed Mario as a silent character without a distinct personality (Fortune Street is a notable exception). According to Nintendo's philosophy, this allows Mario to fit in many different genres and roles. In most games, he is the hero that goes on an adventure to save Princess Peach from his archenemy, Bowser, but he has been shown doing many other activities besides adventuring, such as racing and sporting with his younger twin brother and others. Mario's main traits are his red hat, thick mustache, Italian accent, cheerful personality, heavy use of power-ups, and high jumping ability.

Following the failure of Radar Scope in North America, Nintendo's then-president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, requested Miyamoto's aid in converting unsold Radar Scope units into something that would sell well. Miyamoto conceived the concept of a love triangle and decided to make a game based on Popeye. He, however, was denied the rights for the Popeye franchise, so he decided to come up with a new idea using his own characters.

For use in his arcade game Donkey Kong, he created a player character originally known during development as Ossan (the Japanese term for "middle-aged man"), then Jumpman and Mr. Video Game or Mr. Video.Coincidentally, "Ossan" would be the name given to a Mario look-alike in the game Golf. This character was given red overalls and a blue shirt in order to make the arms more visible as well as a cap and moustache, as hair and a mouth were impossible to animate on the arcade system. The character was originally known as Jumpman, but Nintendo of Japan asked Nintendo of America if they wanted to rename him during the Western localization; president Minoru Arakawa and employee Don James thought it would be funny to call the character Mario after the suspenders-wearing Italian American landlord of storage and company housing, Mario Segale. While Mario was initially described as a carpenter, Mario Bros. subsequently changed his occupation after a colleague thought that he looked more like a plumber.