A.C. Slater's all grown up and a dad of three!
Mario Lopez's third child, a baby boy named Santino Rafael, was born in early July, and joins his two other siblings: Dominic, 5, and Gia, 8. The Access Hollywood host recently sat down with PureWow on behalf of Office Depot’s Back to School Proud campaign, which empowers kids to get excited about heading back to the classroom with the right supplies, and revealed how he and wife Courtney chose their now nearly 2-month-old son's name.
"All my kids have Italian names," the former Extra host said. "Lopez covers the Latin part. We just loved the way it sounded. And Rafael is my grandfather's name."
"Plus, I love The Godfather," Lopez said, laughing, referring to Sonny "Santino" Corleone (played by James Caan), the oldest son of Vito Corleone (portrayed by Marlon Brando). "Santino's a cool character. So we call him Sonny, just like that."
He also previously revealed to PureWow that he stays close with the Saved by the Bell cast. The show celebrated its 30-year anniversary this month.
“I keep in touch with them,” Lopez said of the Bayside gang. “Matter of fact, we all went to dinner together not too long ago. I was just at Tiffani [Thiessen]’s house last week. Our families got together, and seeing our kids play together was really cool.”
The original show premiered in 1989 and ran for four seasons. It starred Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zack), Lopez (A.C. Slater), Dustin Diamond (Screech), Thiessen (Kelly), Elizabeth Berkley (Jessie), Lark Voorhies (Lisa) and Dennis Haskins (Mr. Belding).
Actually, Lopez and his co-stars might just have enough kids between them for a Saved by the Bell spinoff... (NBC, give us a call!)
