Death of Pelé: where does the nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento come from?

By dint of calling him the "King" or using qualifiers commensurate with his talent, we almost forget that Pelé is not really "Pelé".

Died on December 29, 2022, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, by his full name, inherited this nickname from his childhood.

Obrigado, Rei Pelé.

pic.twitter.com/2Xb7XElR41

— Santos FC (@SantosFC) December 29, 2022

Many Brazilians are known by a pseudonym rather than their real name.

The parents of the future "O Rei" first nicknamed their offspring "Dico", son of a warrior, in Portuguese.

The reason ?

The father was a warrior in the field.

In Pelé's youth, "Dondinho" played for Vasco de Gama as an amateur footballer.

The future Brazilian legend falls in love with this club and in particular the goalkeeper of the team.

Bilé is Pelé's idol, except that the latter pronounces "Pile".

Pilé has gradually transformed into Pelé and the young football fan's classmates use this nickname to annoy him.

The triple world champion will go so far as to fight at school as he dislikes this nickname.

The story around the King's name does not end there.

It began at the birth of the prodigy.

A typo is embedded in the first name of Edson Arantes do Nascimento when the father declares his son to the Civil Registry in October 1940. Originally, Pelé's parents planned to call him Edison, in homage to the famous inventor Thomas Edison, to celebrate the arrival of electricity in their village.

Finally, when he arrived in Santos in 1956, “O Rei” ran so fast that his teammates renamed him “Gasolina”, for essence.

But, for eternity, the legend of the Seleçao will remain Pelé.