As I gaze upon the vastness of Hetalia, I realize how weird some of the things that are in it. For instance, Latvia cannot get drunk, at all. This is one of the reasons that Russia favors Latvia as a drinking partner. 

Thankfully, for this question, I don't have to do math!! Yay!! 

For this, we're going to assume that no matter how much alcohol Latvia drinks, he won't be able to get drunk. 

Now, how does Latvia have the ability to not get drunk? First, we must know how alcohol affects the body to make you drunk in the first place. 

Basically, it boils down to this: 

(Warning!! Biology that most of us have probably forgotten!!!) 

When you drink alcohol, your stomach lets it pass into the small intestine where it gets absorbed into the bloodstream because your body cannot break down alcohol into a less potent substance (AKA Digest) as it can with meat and veggies. After it enters the bloodstream, your body mistakes it for one of the eight chemicals in your brain and gets taken to the brain. Once at the brain, it shuts down the actual chemical producers in a similar situation to this: 

You are working hard to make orange juice, but as you work, you look outside to see hundreds of people just making orange juice from water. Enraged, you quit your job. 

Basically, your chemical producing glands sense that they are no longer needed and sleep for a little while, which is why, when you wake up, you have a hangover as the chemical producing glands have yet to jump-start fully, so you're left with a half-functioning brain and dehydrated induced headache. 

Now, while this won't kill you, you must remember that alcohol is what scientists refer to as a depressant. That means that when you drink it, it causes you to become more relaxed by slowing your breathing and heart rate. However, the more you drink the more you become 'alcohol resistant' so you must drink more and more to get drunk. This means that, at a certain point, too much alcohol enters your system and it will completely shut down your brain's chemical glands (which you need for your brain to function properly), stop your breathing, and heart. This is what alcohol poisoning is. 

Now, this is where things get a little more interesting. According to the internet and the many sources it carries, everyone has enzymes in their stomach called ADH and ALDH that can break down alcohol to a certain extent. These enzymes, (sometimes referred to as alcohol metabolism) vary a lot from person to person, so there is no median of how much an average person can drink before getting drunk. These enzymes can range from so low a half cup of alcohol will get you tipsy to you need one and a half cups to get you on your way. Remember that as you become more alcohol resistant, this is your enzymes getting better at digesting/breaking down alcohol. 

However, there is still a limit to how much these enzymes can break down alcohol. This is also a little unpredictable but it boils down to, no matter how strong your ADH and ALDH enzymes are, your still going to get drunk at some point. 

None of this is related to alcohol intolerance, which is similar in effect to lactose intolerance. Basically, it means that your body will reject alcohol and is sometimes a result of genetics or drinking too much alcohol and your body deciding that enough is enough. That is also why you'll throw up, your body has detected too much alcohol and will force the stuff that has stayed in your stomach out. 

There is also another genetic factor in getting drunk, it's called the 'hangover gene'. This gene is newly found and still in the process of being researched with little information on it. From what I found though, it does cause a very high natural alcohol tolerance that will keep you from feeling drunk for a significantly longer period of time than if you don't have it. However, this gene will not stop alcohol poisoning from happening and you will still get the effects of 'drunk' eventually. Having this gene actually puts you at a higher risk of alcohol poisoning due to people not knowing when to stop because 'they don't feel drunk' or 'they aren't acting drunk so why should the alcohol stop'. 

Back to how this is related to Latvia. My theory from the information above is that Latvia has a super version of the hangover gene and cannot physically get drunk, and his nation healing abilities/immortality stop him from getting alcohol poisoning/stopping an alcohol buildup in his system. That, and a liver of steel. 

Yeah, the reason that people say that is because the liver cleans the blood of all the gross stuff such as alcohol and dead blood cells, but it can't clean alcohol really fast, so the alcohol just stays in the liver for a while before going out into your toilet while you go number 1. 

So, Latvia can't feel the effects of getting drunk, such as disorientation, a lack of coordination, mood and behavior changes, harder to think clearly, and most likely hangovers, and his nation healing/immortality keep him from dying of alcohol poisoning. 

So, not that long ago, there was a post on Instagram going around about how Romano’s name is Lorenzo instead of Lovino and how Veneziano’s name is Felice instead of Feliciano. A couple of fans reached out to me and asked if this was true. And sadly, it is not. Lorenzo and Lovino would have completely different Katakana spellings and so do Felice and Feliciano. Feliciano derives from the word Felice, meaning happy. And it is more commonly used as a surname than a first name. But Feliciano is used as a first name uncommonly and is more of an old name losing its popularity. It’s probably as uncommon as Tolys. But no. This theory isn’t true.

But it got me thinking, we still don’t know why Romano is named Lovino or if this could be a mistranslation. For those of you wondering, when Himaruya gave us the human names he wrote them all in katakana and didn’t romanize them, leaving fans to translate for themselves. Some were easy, some got lost in translation, and then we have some that just makes zero sense whatsoever. And Lovino is the name that still baffles the fandom to this day. The problem is Lovino isn’t really an Italian given name. It is a rare surname, however, meaning “of the wine”. “Lovinum” was a city in ancient Rome, meaning “small wolf” in Latin. This name has left fans absolutely bewildered for over a decade! No one knows if it was a mistranslation like Tolys or what the hell Himaruya meant here. And not even I have a confident answer for you. This isn’t merely a mistaking an R for an L like with Tolys or a B somehow getting translated to a V like Basch (i don’t know how that happened to be honest…). We are all incredibly confused on what the hell Himaruya meant here. Rovino is a word in Italian, but it means “to ruin” and isn’t a name at all. Fans have drummed up numerous theories about this name and I am going to go through it all. So let’s go through them all. 

1. Surname mix up

This would not be the first time Himaruya has mixed up a surname for a first name. Take a look at Denmark’s list of names. Andersen, Christensen, and Arnesen are all listed as first names for him. And these are all clearly last names. There was a chance that because Japan uses the last name first system, maybe he got confused in the naming since Lovino is a rare Italian last name, meaning “of the wine”. Feliciano is more of a last name too, so maybe he did the same thing here. Veneziano's name may have come from Felice Feliciano, an artist. But Feliciano is still a first name technically. If this is the case, then there isn’t really a good fix for this. Perhaps Himaruya just got confused on his Western name order. 

2. The Luigi theory

I don’t know what the source is for this, but apparently, I heard that Lovino could pass as a nickname for Luigi, which is very much an italian name. We have seen this before with Basch/Sebastian and Tolys/Tolvydas/Tolmintas. But I don’t know how credible this is and would need to affirm with a better source.  

3. A mistranslation

Then there’s the whole possibility that something got mistranslated by the fans via reading the katakana. Switzerland and Lithuania are victims of this, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it happened to Italy Romano. When looking at the katakana, ロヴィーノ, romanized it would be Ro vu~ī no. Already we have a potential change in the beginning since R and L in Japanese are not distinguished. So his name can start with either an R or an L. The “no” has to be the ending. Because it isn’t like Mashū Wiriamuzu or Edoarudo fon Vokku. You can and a word with an n in katakana, so the “no” is intentional. The middle though is where things get interesting. The “V” in katakana could be another letter like an F. We see this in Estonia’s name Edoarudo fon Vokku, that is, if his name is even translated correctly. But normally a V means a V. But when searching for potential names, I’m going to allow myself some leeway. 

SO with all that in mind, the closest names I found were: Livio, Rufino, Lavinio, Livino, and Luigino. I think either Rufino or Lavinio would be most likely. Rufino is a form of Rufus, meaning red-haired. But it is also a saint’s name. Lavinio is a region in South Italy, but the meaning ties into the next theory. 

4.Masculine version of Lovina/Lavina/Lavinia

This is the most likely option since Lovina, or rather Lavina is an actual name of Etruscan origin. By the way, the Etruscans may have been in Italy, but they were of Celtic origin, fun fact. Lavina or Lavinia is from Roman mythology and was the name of the daughter of Latinus and Amata and the last wife of Aeneas. She is also known as the legendary mother of the Roman people. So maybe Romano just did what Greece and Finland did and named himself after a legendary character. “Lovino/Lovina” is more of an English form of the name. That or it would be a very old way of spelling it. Maybe it’s just an old name no one uses anymore. I mean that’s been the case so far for a lot of names. Lithuania, Poland, Veneziano, Sweden, and Switzerland all have this problem. Hell, no one in America names their kid Alfred anymore. Maybe Himaruya looked for older names on purpose and gave them older names to show their ages or their sense of fashion. Or he tried to look for names that were common at the beginning of history and continued from there. Which would explain why Lithuania’s name is not derived from another European name as he was the last country in Europe to convert from paganism.  

If this is the case, a more accurate version would be Lavinio or Lavino rather than Lovino.

Sadly, we still don’t know what Himaruya really meant with this katakana, and I don’t think we will ever know. But let me know if you have another theory on what this could be. 

~Kolko

Sources

https://hetalia.livejournal.com/12622974.html

It has been theorized that the Nations share a common tongue.

According to the Bible, before the Tower of Babel was constructed, humankind shared a common language, before the Lord jumbled them up into different languages and sent them on their way.

According to a book about English food that I just read, scones originated in Scotland.

Cont: That England being America’s “brother”, would also make England Sweden’s (and Finland’s) half son. At least by standard family tree logic. *Matpat voice* But Hey, That’s Just a Theory, A Historical Weeabo Theory!

I figured that was what was meant. Interesting. It is stated Sweden and Finland were there first, but then Netherlands kicked them out. But there haven’t been many interactions between America and Sweden, but there have been interactions with Finland. It is confirmed that America shares Finland’s genes. Finland even offered to be his “papa” since America was jealous of the kids that got presents from their fathers on Christmas. He replied he would if he looked older and so Finland offered to wear a beard. France and England even saw the resemblance between Finland and America but then denied it because they did not want Finland to be a competitor too.

 Then we have this