#alphonso being “noble and ready to battle”

[legobiwan]

Apropos of nothing, here's my personal headcanon in regards to Mario and Luigi's surname.

Now, it's been generally announced and accepted that the brothers' last name is "Mario," shackling them with the somewhat awkward full names of "Mario Mario" and "Luigi Mario." My take on this is that the family's original last name was "Marianetti" (likely coming from the more common "Marinetti"). This name was changed to "Marionetti" when the boys' grandmother came over from Italy. (A common occurrence in record keeping at immigration at the time. Someone probably had bad handwriting and smudged a pencil stroke somewhere. It happened in my family for sure).

In Brooklyn, their father went by the last name "Marionetti," which ended up shortened to just "Mario," as oftentimes he would be addressed by his surname only. (Think, "Hey, Mario! Get over here!" as opposed to "Hey, Marionetti! Get over here!")

So, the boys are born and get their names. (Their father's middle name was Mario, and so our Mario, being the oldest, inherits his father's middle name as his first name. Luigi's name maybe comes from the middle name of some uncle who is long out of the picture).

So we have "Mario Marionetti" and "Luigi Marionetti." Which, their surname being a mouthful, gets shortened to "Mario" more often than not, just like their father. And thus we end up with "Mario Mario" and "Luigi Mario," culminating in the "Mario Brothers."

#hello there #this is based on zero science and mostly a way for me to explain the weird last name thing #i also came up with middle names for the boys based wholly on how i feel they sound and look written down #mario's middle name would be alphonso and luigi's would be giovanni #but i just looked up the meaning of the names and they're PERFECT for the boys #alphonso being “noble and ready to battle” #and giovanni being “gift from god” which would fit with luigi being the second younger twin #also if these definitions are off forgive me and google hahahaha #but the bros don't use those middle names in real life except to annoy each and embarrass each other #anyway enjoy that little tidbit while i go back to work