The footballer/soccer player nicknamed ‘Pele’ has a first name after which one of these famous people?

Nicknamed ‘Pele’ (accent mark over the last ‘e’ ), this footballer/soccer player was named Edson Arantes do Nascimento. He was born in 1940.

His name uses Portuguese naming customs. The first or maternal family name is ‘Arantes’ and the second or paternal family name is ‘do Nascimento’. On September 12, 2014 at 3:03 pm, on his Twitter account, Pele stated, “I was named Edson, after Thomas Edison, because electricity had just been introduced to my hometown in Brazil when I was born”. His parents decided to remove the “i” and call him ‘Edson’.

The nickname ‘Pele’ originated and evolved during his school days. He mispronounced the name of his favorite local player, ‘Vasco da Gama’, a goalkeeper called ‘Bile’ (accent mark over the letter ‘e’). ‘Bile’ turned into ‘Pile’ and then evolved into ‘Pele’.

‘Pele’ played in the World Cup tournaments for the national team of Brazil in 1958, 1962 and 1970. In 1999, the ‘International Federation of Football History & Statistics’ voted Pele the ‘World Player of the Century’. That same year, ‘Time’ magazine named Pele one of the ‘100 Most Important People of the 20th Century’.