In classic Miyamoto fashion, design came first. DK on a construction site, so he was a carpenter. Then MB had the pipes so they said plumber. Then the name, Italian came from that warehouse worker. And they do explicitly say Mario Bros is set in NYC. So from there, I guess?
But a bit like Sonic's origins, like the name Robotnik, a lot of the gaps were just filled in by Nintendo NA employees writing manuals etc with little oversight from Japan, who just accepted/subsumed it. But the NYC/Plumber/Italian thing was defined by the devs during Mario Bros.
It is weird to me that the movie uses real-life (so to speak) NYC, complete with Pauline as Mayor in her Odyssey design, immediately after Nintendo did this weird retcon. Nintendo doesn't exactly /care/ about story, but they're usually more vaguely joined-up than that
Landlord for the old temporary NOA location in Tukwilla, WA, before their move to Redmond. Owner of the warehouse, and real estate developer, not a worker there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Segale
You might already be aware, but Donkey Kong was originally meant to be a Popeye game until licence negotiations fell through. I will never stop being amused at the idea of Nintendo employees shitting it because they've lost fuckin Popeye
Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Mario Bros are set in the real world thing. Then they went through one of the Mario Bros pipes and ended up in the Mushroom Kingdom.
I think New Donk City is supposed to be where they came from, but the film reinstated the old NES-era US canon. A few wee things implied they consulted decades-old branding bibles for it. Even in strictly vintage Japanese sources, the continuity is pretty muddy.
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Bit like how Sonic swears in English in the Japanese voice lines all the time lol