London, November 16 (ANI): People at a small Italian town have a reason to cheer, as they have won a legal battle to use their nicknames, including “Fat”, “Mad” and “Peasant”, on all official documents.

The residents of Chioggia near Venice have been using nicknames for more than 200 years in order to distinguish between distantly related families.

The fact that 8000 people share the same surname in the town created the necessity of using nicknames, reports the Telegraph.

And now, according to the Guardian, the interior ministry has allowed the usage of nickname as a second or official surname.

“We fought hard for this so we can avoid a lot of confusion, as well as making filling out forms less complicated,” the Telegraph quoted the mayor, Romano Tiozzo, as saying.

The town located at the south end of the Venice lagoon has 8,000 Boscolos and 5,000 Tiozzos out of 52,000 people.

Interior ministry undersecretary Michelino Davico told the Corriere della Sera: “If we find similar situations in other towns we will also consider sorting them out.” (ANI)