The game was developed primarily by a young Namco employee named Tōru Iwatani over the course of a year, beginning in April 1979, employing a nine-man team. It was based on the concept of eating, and the original Japanese title was Pakkuman (パックマン?), inspired by the Japanese folk hero "Paku" who was known for his appetite[disputed – discuss] as well as by the Japanese onomatopoeic slang phrase paku-paku taberu (パクパク食べる?), where paku-paku describes (the sound of) the mouth movement when widely opened and then closed in succession.

Although Iwatani has repeatedly stated that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice, he admitted in a 1986 interview that this was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (口). Iwatani attempted to appeal to a wider audience—beyond the typical demographics of young boys and teenagers. This led him to add elements of a maze, as well as cute ghost enemy characters. The result was a game he named Puck Man.