Pleased to meet you, my name's... Hitler

The BBQ Pit
41

I still think that if a kid accepts the surname of a man who commited genocide as a first name and doesn’t change it when he has the opportunity, it’s a de facto endorsement. A lot of people go by different names than their parents called them growing up - in fact, that’s the norm in a lot of cultures. So someone will have to get used to having a different name on forms and things - lots of people do it for much less reason.

I don’t know enough about the Dominican Republic to know if there’s some cultural difference that I’m missing, though. Personally, if I met someone with the first name Hitler, I doubt I’d bother getting to know them well enough to find out what the deal with it was. As far as I’m concerned, the choice to keep a name and not fix it, which incidentally is quite easy in the U.S. - or at very least use a different name in unofficial circumstances - indicates endorsement.

This is why I’ve never bothered giving a listen to the seminal indie band Gang of Four. I’m sure they’re great - they have a good reputation, anyway - but they’re named after the friggin’ Gang of Four.

Incidentally, I’m curious about the name “Adolph”. I have to say that I would be quite surprised to meet an Adolph in the United States - it seems that even the first name has been contaminated by the association. But I’ve known a Spanish guy named Adolfo; am I right in assuming that it’s still a reasonably common name in many places?

42

My wife has an Uncle Adolph, we call him “Dolphie”.

43

I feel the same way about Joy Division. How much of an asshole do you have to be to call yourselves that? I’m glad that piece of shit offed himself.

44

At least “Joy Division” isn’t a name used by perpetrators of genocide. But yeah, I hear what you’re saying.

I never liked them much because all of their music is completely tuneless and sounds like it was recorded in a phone booth.

45

Common, probably not, but Adolph Gasser runs a well-known camera repair shop in San Francisco.

And if that’s not bad enough, I still meet people to this day named Joseph. What a bunch of bastards they are!

46

Holy fuck!

Actually, to me it’s surprising that the name “Adolph” seems to be tainted, since it’s his first name. But a big part of that is probably that it just wasn’t a real common name in the United States at least before that time.

47

I wonder how common a name Benedict was 230 years ago in the Colonies?

48

And all those people endorsing him by running around with his last name as their first name. :rolleyes:

49

WTF is up with the rolleyes? We’re talking about names getting less popular when someone notorious happened to have the name. It was a legitimate question.

50

And an interesting one. Given that “Arnold” was a fairly common first name before and after, it’s not exactly comparable with deciding to name your kid Hitler which does look pretty clearly like you’re naming him after Der Führer. What’s the problem, kidchameleon?

51

What about that meat tenderizer, huh? Fucking jackboots, goose-stepping all over my steak. Papain über alles!

52

I’ll grant that naming your children after a mass murderer is not a nice thing to do, but some families may have had traditions associated with those names before they became famous. No one is obliged to choose names for their children with an eye for making you happy. They ought to pick something that won’t make life harder for the kid, but ultimately that’s their decision.

As far as adults not wanting to change their name: If Hitler Jones has been called that since he was born and he’s eighteen now, he’s used to it and his family and friends no doubt associate it with him at least as strongly as you associate it with the German dictator. People were named Hitler a long time before he rose to power, and in a few hundred years, once the stigma has faded, I wouldn’t be surprised if Adolph was a popular name again.

I think the Office Space quote earlier in this thread sums it up well. People stuck with the name Hitler should be bringing a class action suit against the countries where Hitler resided during his lifetime forcing them to posthumously change his name to “Mungface Poopypants”, because he’s the one who did something wrong.

53

Isn’t the name Adolf very popular in the Swedish Royal family?

54

Are you serious? ‘Hitler’ as a first name?

As others have mentioned, Adolf or Adolph, although not in the top 10 baby names, are still to be found here and there. I know several, all in Spanish speaking countries, who bear the name ‘Adolfo’ due to family tradition (dating back to well before their more famous namesake rose to power) where the oldest son is named after the father. For some reason almost all the post-WW2 Adolfos use nicknames.

55

You people think someone with the first name “Hitler” is weird? How about someone whose complete given name is “Adolf Hitler”? Someone with that name was an undergraduate computer science student at the University of Toronto a few years back. I never taught him, but did see him online on the system’s Unix server on numerous occasions. Every once in a while another student would complain to the system administrators that someone had hacked the server and changed their username to Adolf Hitler. And the response from the administrators was inevitably, “Um, no, that’s the kid’s real name.”

My colleagues who taught him told me he was some Indian (as in, from India) kid, and that as far as they knew he had been named Adolf Hitler from birth. Apparently he was a pretty ordinary-looking and -acting student. I don’t know why his parents chose this name – perhaps they admired Hitler, or perhaps they didn’t know who he was and just chose the name out of a history book, or perhaps they were playing a cruel practical joke on their son.

56

Having some relatives that work in hospitals has enabled me to hear some strangely chosen names. Crippling names. The sort of names that would scar a child for life. None of this, however, prepared me for one name in particular. One name whose stupidity was placed above all others.

One day, a baby boy was born at our local hospital. He was somewhat unremarkable, white, born from a middle class single mother. In every way but one, he was utterly inconspicuous. I am told that he was bright and active, and reached out for the attention of anyone nearby. His infant eyes were blissfully unaware of the heavy burden that had been placed upon him. The burden… of a name.

Not his last name, to be sure. He bore no familial relation to any famous tyrants or mass murderers. His last name didn’t even rhyme with a bodily function. No, the burden came entirely from the syllables his mother screeched when she was asked the all-important question.

“So, what are you going to name him?”

“Saddam Jihad.”

The mother, it seems, was trying to impress her Islamic boyfriend. Her Islamic boyfriend who had been born and raised American. Her boyfriend, who, it seemed, was not even the baby’s father.

Once a person recovered from the stunned silence that the boy’s name naturally evoked, the next question, naturally, is, “Why do you want to name him that?”

“Well, Saddam for Saddam Hussein, of course, and Jihad means holy war.”

My shock overcame my empathy, at least at first, in this instance.

57

Just a minor note: that’s not a list of recommended lawyers. It’s merely a list of lawyers. The US Embassy isn’t permitted to recommend any particular lawyer.

58

Humanist: I can top that. One “brilliant” Sailor on my first ship actually named his son Rat. Rat was the Sailor’s nick-name when he was a tyke.

59

Jewish classmate of mine in high school has an older brother named Adolph. Everyone in the family and all of his friends call him Dolph.

60

Wow, that beats my plan to name the first little tyke “Slobodon McGenocide”.

But I think the “Mc” gives my idea a nice playful kick.