I thought Mario being Mario's (and Luigi's) last name was a joke? Or is it actually canon? Or is this just an error on the Wiki?
Videos
[edit: Wow. Two years in, and I still get replies thinking I was serious. Maybe I need to tag everything as SaRcAsM for the people who take the fictional lives of cartoon/video game plumbers so seriously.]
Mario and Luigi first appear together in 1983's "Mario Bros." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros.) They can jump and run, but otherwise have no special "super" abilities.
They go on to appear in "Super Mario Bros." in 1985 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.) and more than 20 subsequent games, in which they gain various superhuman abilities.
The entire 39+ year franchise is officially referred to as "Super Mario" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario), indicating the singular protagonist (Mario) is its focus, and not the duo (the brothers).
Neither the original, nor any of the games in the Super Mario franchise, use the article "the". It is not, for instance, "The Super Mario Bros." Unlike other media referring to a pair of brothers (The Blues Brothers, etc).
Which leads me to my theory:
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Mario's full name is not Mario Mario, as the 1993 film (not canon) would have you believe, but Mario Fratelli.
An uncommon but prevalent Italian family name, Fratelli literally means "siblings" or "brothers".
In the 1983 game, Mario Fratelli (antagonist of the "Donkey Kong" games) is featured in his first eponymous game. The jumping carpenter-turned-plumber, is joined by his brother(?) Luigi. After multiple translations, the game's title is mistakenly altered. Mario's last name will thereafter be anglicized "Brothers" (an uncommon, but enduring Irish family name with roots as far back as the Domesday Book). Mario Brothers. Not The Mario Brothers. (Shortened, of course, for convenience to Bros.)
And so, the franchise of games is only coincidentally about a pair of brothers. It is named after an Italian plumber with super powers, Super Mario Fratelli.
Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto answered this in an interview with GameInformer a while back.
To him, Mario and Luigi don't have last names, but in the film version, Mario and Luigi have the last name of "Mario".
“This is an old story, but Hollywood did a film version of the Mario Bros. many years back. There was a scene in the script where they needed a last name for the characters. Somebody suggested that, because they were the Mario Bros., their last name should be Mario. So, they made him “Mario Mario.” I heard this and laughed rather loudly. Of course, this was ultimately included in the film. Based on the film, that’s [how] their names ended up. But, just like Mickey Mouse doesn’t really have a last name, Mario is really just Mario and Luigi is really just Luigi.”
In 2015, Miyamoto reportedly confirmed that the brothers' last name is officially "Mario", but I have been unable to find a reliable translated source. Most news sources cite this article about the press conference; this is the translation courtesy of ixrec.
任天堂公式の名称は「マリオ・マリオ」と判明！
The official Nintendo name for him has been confirmed to be "Mario Mario"!
宮本氏はステージにあがり、「マリオ・マリオが本名」と発言したのである！
Mr Miyamoto came up on stage and stated that "Mario Mario is his real name"!
(note this might be a paraphrase rather than Miyamoto's exact words)
From the Wikipedia article:
Nintendo did not initially reveal Mario's full name. In a 1989 interview it was stated not to be "Mario Mario" despite the implication of the Mario Bros. series' title.
The first notable use of "Mario Mario" was in the 1993 live-action film adaptation. This was again used in two of Prima's official stategy guides, in 2000 for Mario Party 2 and in 2003 for Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga.
In 2012 after Charles Martinet voiced Mario declaring himself "Mario Mario" at the San Diego Comic-Con the next month Satoru Iwata said he had no last name, which Shigeru Miyamoto agreed with the month after. Two months after Iwata's death in July 2015, Miyamoto changed his stance September 2015 at the Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary festival, confirming that his name was indeed Mario Mario.
So, TL;DR, the most recent decision is that his first name is Mario and his last name is Mario.
So been wondering about this for a while. So Mario has no last name? So it’s Mario Mario? So Luigi would be Luigi Mario or Luigi Luigi? I know there was a joke about it in the unpopular Super Mario Bros movie (shutters).