If I were Mario and if I were mean, not only would I have saved the quotes, but also who said what - then if I ever needed to shoot down that person's credibility, whip out one of their quotes...
I've said it before - the unorthodox name sure got a lot of people's attention - and while there was a lot of negativity at first, E3 soon after changed a lot of people's minds.
Sure, an unorthodox and possibly crude name seems like an unneccesary "hurdle" and people who may have heard the name but don't really know what the controller can do or what kind of games there are for it are probably the only ones that are going to avoid it. And even then, how long would they? I mean, honestly, after seeing someone playing on it, who's honestly going to say, "Hey, let me try this thing. What's it called? What? "Wii"? Are you serious? I don't want to play with a Wii. Forget I asked."
Some people can be pretty dumb and shallow, but I don't think there will be enough put off solely by the name enough to not get one. If they say they won't get a Wii just because of the name, most likely it's another reason - like maybe they're so anti-Nintendo that they don't want to. You know that when anti-Nintendo people pick on the dumbest things (like the GameCube's colour, handle, shape, the Wii's name, etc.) and not on better "reasons" (number of games, third-party support) that they're not being rational at all, so who needs them?
I'm still waiting for a celebrity to go on Conan or Jay Leno or Letterman and point out that they like to play games and say with a straight face, "I can't wait to get my hands on my Wii. I'm going to play with my Wii all night long." etc. And then judging by the host and audience's response, point out that they mean the Nintendo Wii. That'll get people's attention.