Reverting name
Moving this back to Grandma Connolly. That's her name in the end credits, and the end credits can't just be ignored. In a case where the episode gives us no help, the credits are the next-highest source of information. Add to that the existence of merchandise with the name, and you've got as solid a case as we're going to get. The production team meant for this character to be named "Grandma Connolly". You then have to go from the stance that the production team were correct. Do that, and the logical conclusion to be drawn is that Rita was a Connolly prior to marriage. Like Eleanor Roosevelt, she's a woman who couldn't have a married name, even if she wanted one. Well, I guess she could've been Rita Connolly Connolly, but that's silly. Connolly's a pretty dirt-common British/Irish surname; quite possible for her to have married a Connolly she wasn't related to — or to have done the Roosevelt thing and married a distant cousin.
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- Equally possible, given the war, for Grandma to have remarried a Connolly after her original husband died in battle/air-raid/whatever. So Grandma could be a Connolly by marriage just as easily as her daughter. Presence of more than one possibility calls for much more neutral language in behind the scenes note.
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