Biden told Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Thursday he felt self-conscious he didn’t grow up with an Italian-sounding name.
“I just want you to know, I was raised in a neighborhood where I felt self-conscious my name didn’t end in ‘O,'” the president told Meloni in the Oval Office.
“And I want you to know, I’m the only non-Italian Man of the Year by the Italian Society, and when I got the award, I said, and everybody knew what I was going to say, I said, ‘I was thinking about this.’ And I named all the guys and families that I grew up with … and I said, ‘I was thinking about this. I deserve this award,'” Biden added.
He then made a joke about marrying Jill Biden, who comes from Italian descent.
“I may be Irish but I’m not stupid. I married Dominic Giacoppa’s granddaughter,” Biden said.
In a February conversation with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Biden said he felt self-conscious his last name didn’t sound more Polish when he was younger. (RELATED: Biden Says He Wanted His Last Name To Be ‘Bidenski’)
“I was born in a coal town of Scranton, Pennsylvania … When coal died, we moved down to Delaware, to a town called Claymont, Delaware, which was a working-class town … everybody in town was either Polish or Italian,” Biden said at the time. “I grew up feeling self-conscious my name didn’t end in an ‘s-k-i’ or an ‘o.'”