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Help[Opinions] I wonder (ot)
in reply to a message by Billina
Surely there must have been a huge influx of baby boy Adolphs during Hitler's reign. I wonder if after his fall, all those Adolphs changed their names or if there is a lot of old guys named Adolph in Germany and it's not as shocking a name over there.
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Well, there are still quite a few older guys named Adolf around. I'd say the youngest ones are in their late 60s now.
Is it a shocking name? Hmm. On a baby born today it definitely would be. More than ever, actually. But that wasn't the question. On those older guys... it's kind of ambiguous. I mean, our generation, people in their 20s, we are probably the last ones to grow up with living Adolfs still around. So, you know, first, when you are little, they are just "Grandpa Adolf" or "Adolf, the elderly man from down the road" to you. It's just a normal name. No different than "Grandpa Richard" or "Albert, the next door neighbor". Then, however, when you start taking History classes in 5th or 6th grade, the name becomes sort of a huge "ummmm, yeah, ewww, oy!" to you. Then, by 8th or 9th grade, you learn about the full scope of what living in the Third Reich actually meant, what the Nazis did, how all of this could happen; it's taught not only in History class but in virtually every class at school (well, maybe not Maths, but you know...), you visit concentration camps, etc. And at home you start asking questions. That's at least how it was at my school and the experiences my friends and I made. Could be different for others.
So, anyway, when it comes to the name Adolf, the lines are a bit blurry, I'd say. There is a certain shock value, of course there is. Then again, there are those elderly men from your childhood. It's all a bit... um... "schizophrenic", if you can call it that.
And of course the name is considered totally unusable here, but I think that goes without saying.
Is it a shocking name? Hmm. On a baby born today it definitely would be. More than ever, actually. But that wasn't the question. On those older guys... it's kind of ambiguous. I mean, our generation, people in their 20s, we are probably the last ones to grow up with living Adolfs still around. So, you know, first, when you are little, they are just "Grandpa Adolf" or "Adolf, the elderly man from down the road" to you. It's just a normal name. No different than "Grandpa Richard" or "Albert, the next door neighbor". Then, however, when you start taking History classes in 5th or 6th grade, the name becomes sort of a huge "ummmm, yeah, ewww, oy!" to you. Then, by 8th or 9th grade, you learn about the full scope of what living in the Third Reich actually meant, what the Nazis did, how all of this could happen; it's taught not only in History class but in virtually every class at school (well, maybe not Maths, but you know...), you visit concentration camps, etc. And at home you start asking questions. That's at least how it was at my school and the experiences my friends and I made. Could be different for others.
So, anyway, when it comes to the name Adolf, the lines are a bit blurry, I'd say. There is a certain shock value, of course there is. Then again, there are those elderly men from your childhood. It's all a bit... um... "schizophrenic", if you can call it that.
And of course the name is considered totally unusable here, but I think that goes without saying.
This message was edited 5/13/2013, 4:13 PM
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I have met one Adolf. He was a counselor I went to once as a teenager. Very German last name too and I didn't know what to expect. He turned out to be a very, very nice man, hard to guess his age, maybe around fifty, and this would be about 1995 or 1996. No idea where he was born, no accent of any kind.
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