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gunsandspaceships · 10 days ago

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MCU Tony Stark's Ancestry

Tony's origin is a mystery, isn't it? In both the MCU and the comics, the writers don’t give us enough information about his ancestors and their ethnicity to draw any definitive conclusions on the matter. So fans fill in the blanks themselves, often making them up based on their own desires. Hispanic fans want him to be Hispanic, Jewish fans want him to be Jewish, Italian fans want him to be half-Italian, etc. Where is the truth? Can we even establish it?

Well, we can try. Based on 3 things: the origin and prevalence of the last names (Stark, Carbonell, and Collins), the ethnicity of the towns where his parents were born (Richford and Southampton, New York), and the ancestry of the actors (RDJ, Hope Davis, Dominic Cooper, and John Slattery), I will list possible ethnicities and their likelihood of being connected to Tony.

Note: Why does the origin of the actors matter? Our MCU characters have the faces, voices, and other physical characteristics of the actors who play them. These traits are hereditary. We can’t say, for example, that character A is 100% Chinese if he’s played by a 100% Danish actor, right? So we have to take that into account.

Let's start with the MCU actors:

Maria Stark is portrayed by Hope Davis, an American actress of Welsh descent. Unfortunately, I can't verify the claim that she is 100% Welsh, as there is no family tree of hers online.

Howard Stark is portrayed by three people (Dominic Cooper, John Slattery, and Gerard Sanders), but we'll only use Cooper and Slattery here since Sanders only appeared once in one film (IM1) in a photo and had no actual scenes.

Dominic Cooper is an English actor with English and Scottish roots. Checking his tree on Geni, I also found a long line of Welsh ancestors, so we'll add that.

John Slattery is an American actor of Irish descent. His family tree isn't deep, so I can't add anything to it.

Looks like we've collected the British Isles. Only one actor left.

Robert Downey Jr. is an American actor of mixed heritage: according to official sources such as Finding Your Roots and The Age of A.I., he is about 80% European (Swiss, German, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, possibly some Lithuanian and Russian, but this is likely inaccurate) and ~20% Middle Eastern (Lithuanian Jewish). According to his tree on Geni (if we can trust it; don't look at Marisa Tomei among his listed partners, that's probably someone's dream) he actually has a very long line of French ancestry on his mother's side, as well as long Belgian, Dutch and English lines. Some other admixtures, such as Italian, Austrian and Scandinavian, are also present in small amounts. We'll only include the longest lines here, as the contribution of other ethnic groups is small.

Note: Robert and Dominic actually share common ancestors on their mother's side (the English line).

Next we will look at the places where the characters come from:

According to the MCU and comics, Howard Stark was born and raised in Richford, NY. The most common ancestry of the residents of this place include: German (19.9%), English (16%), Irish (12%), Italian (4.1%), and Polish (3.7%). It is also the area with the highest number of residents with Slovak roots (a whopping 1%!). (Source)

It is unknown where Maria Stark (Collins-Carbonell) came from in the MCU. We know that in the comics (616), she is from Southampton, NY. Since Howard in the MCU and comics has the same place of origin (but the origin itself is different, so we will not apply his father and grandfather in the comics to the MCU), we can assume that Maria has too (at least it does not contradict anything).

Southampton, NY residents are of Irish (11.6%), English (10.7%), Italian (10.1%), German (7.1%), Polish (6.2%), Russian (4.5%), Scottish (3.6%), French (1.7%), Danish (1.1%), and Dutch (1%) ancestry, with <1% other ethnicities. (Source)

As we can see, Germany invaded our British Isles, as it is the only other option that also includes the actors and both birthplaces.

We've reached the last thing we can check, and the most obvious one - last names. In our case, there are three: Stark for Howard, Carbonell and Collins for Maria.

Stark : 1: Scottish (Lanarkshire) and English: nickname from Middle English stark ‘strong sturdy; harsh severe’ (Old English stearc). 2: German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): nickname for a strong bold person from Middle High German stark(e) German stark ‘strong brave’. 3: Czech and Slovak (Štark): of German origin (see 2 above). 4: Swedish: ornamental name or soldier's name a cognate of 2 above. (Source)

If we look at the records and map in the source (before 1900), we see the following:

Matches the description, doesn't it?

Note: I will not include countries that have only one record but no records from centuries before, as they are likely not places of birth or permanent residence.

So, here are the ethnic groups we can find there:

Most of the records: Scottish, English, Irish, Swedish, Finnish, German, Dutch, Swiss, Austrian, French, Romanian, Hungarian, Slovak, Czech, Ukrainian, Serbian, Polish.

Some of the records: Welsh, Danish, Belgian, Russian.

The records of Eastern and Central Europe may include Jews, but this cannot be determined with certainty.

Carbonell : 1: Catalan: from an old personal name Carbonellus in Latin derived from Latin carbo ‘coal charcoal’. This surname is also found in southern France (mainly Pyrénées-Orientales). 2: English (of Norman or Huguenot origin): nickname for a man with dark hair or a swarthy complexion from a diminutive of Anglo-Norman French carbon ‘charcoal’. The name was also reintroduced to Britain by Huguenot refugees in the 17th century. (Source)

Here is a map for this last name (again, before 1900):

Most represented ethnicities in the records: Spanish, French.

Some records are: English, Argentinian, Andorran, Algerian.

Collins : 1: English: variant of Colin with genitival or post-medieval excrescent -s. 2: Irish and Manx: shortened Anglicized from Ó Coileáin compare Cullen or in Man or west Ulster shortened from Mac Coileáin compare McQuillan and McCallion. The genitival -s is a local addition to Collin and variants after the surname was Anglicized. 3: Americanized form of French Colin or Collin and also Collette. 4: In some cases an Americanized form of Slovenian Kolenc. (Source)

Most people with the last name were: English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Manx, Belgian, French, Dutch.

Some were: Swedish, German, Canadian, South African, Australian, New Zealanders.

We can now collect all the options into one list (not including the options that were colonies) and categorize them by probability level.

More likely to apply to Tony (matches all three: actor, place, and name):

English (2 actors, both birthplaces and all 3 last names)

Irish (2 actors, both birthplaces and 2 last names)

Scottish (2 actors, 1 birthplace and 2 last names)

German (1 actor, both birthplaces and 2 last names)

French (1 actor, 1 birthplace and all 3 last names)

Dutch (1 actor, 1 birthplace, 2 last names)

Average chances that apply to Tony (matching two out of three indicators):

Polish (both birthplaces, 1 last name)

Slovak (1 birthplace, 1 last name)

Russian (1 birthplace, 1 last name)

Slovene (1 birthplace, 1 last name)

Czech (1 birthplace, 1 last name)

Danish (1 birthplace, 1 last name)

Hungarian (1 birthplace, 1 last name)

Welsh (3 actors, 2 last names)

Belgian (1 actor, 2 last names)

Swiss (1 actor, 1 last name)

Jewish (1 actor, 1 last name)

Low chances, but still exist (only matches one indicator):

Italian (both birthplaces)

Lithuanian (1 birthplace)

Swedish (2 last names)

Spanish (1 last name)

Andorran (1 last name)

Manx (1 last name)

Finnish (1 last name)

Austrian (1 last name)

Romanian (1 last name)

Ukrainian (1 last name)

Serbian (1 last name)

We got 6 ethnicities that have the highest chance of being related to Tony: English, Scottish, Irish, German, French and Dutch.

Now let's narrow it down a bit and do the same thing, but for each parent.

Maria has the following ethnicity options:

Highest chances:

French (one of two actors: Robert; birthplace: Southampton, NY; both last names: Carbonell and Collins)

English (one actor: Robert; birthplace; both last names)

Irish (one actor: Robert; birthplace; one name: Collins)

Scottish (one actor: Robert; birthplace; one name: Collins)

German (one actor: Robert; birthplace; one name: Collins)

Dutch (one actor: Robert; birthplace; one name: Collins)

Average chances:

Welsh (both actors: Hope and Robert; one name: Collins)

Belgian (one actor: Robert; one name: Collins)

Slovene (birthplace; one name: Collins)

Low chances:

Polish (only birthplace)

Russian (only birthplace)

Czech (only birthplace)

Danish (only birthplace)

Hungarian (only birthplace)

Italian (only birthplace)

Lithuanian (only birthplace)

Swedish (only one last name: Collins)

Spanish (only one last name: Carbonell)

Andorran (only one last name: Carbonell)

Manx (only one last name: Collins)

Swiss (only one actor: Robert)

Jewish (only one actor: Robert)

So while the highest odds are still with the same 6 ethnicities, we can assume that she has an even higher chance of being French and/or English due to both of her last names. This also correlates with the fact that Tony speaks French.

Howard has the following ethnicity options:

Highest chances:

English (two of three actors: Dominic and Robert; birthplace: Richford, NY; last name)

Irish (two actors: John and Robert; birthplace; last name)

German (one actor: Robert; birthplace; last name)

Average chances:

Scottish (two actors: Dominic and Robert; last name)

Welsh (two actors: Dominic and Robert; last name)

French (one actor: Robert; last name)

Dutch (one actor: Robert; last name)

Belgian (one actor: Robert; last name)

Swiss (one actor: Robert; last name)

Jewish (one actor: Robert; last name)

Polish (birthplace; last name)

Slovak (birthplace; last name)

Low chances:

Russian (only last name)

Czech (only last name)

Danish (only last name)

Hungarian (only last name)

Swedish (only last name)

Finnish (only last name)

Austrian (only last name)

Romanian (only last name)

Ukrainian (only last name)

Serbian (only last name)

Italian (only birthplace)

We have managed to narrow the possibilities down to three. But we can also add other names to get just one, most likely choice: Howard, Walter, Anthony, and even Almanzo are all names that are of Germanic origin or have been used in Germany for centuries. So we can safely conclude that Howard is mostly of German origin.

Conclusion

After this lengthy analysis, we came up with three most likely main ethnicities for Tony: German (on his father's side), French and/or English (on his mother's side).

Note: This does not mean that he cannot be 50% Finnish, 30% Russian and 20% Andorran with no English, French or German roots. BUT this is unlikely.

#marvel #mcu #tony stark #iron man #howard stark #maria stark #rdj #robert downey jr #hope davis #dominic cooper #john slattery #tony's ancestry #genealogy

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