A Strange Name

My father was born, in 1910, in a part of Europe that had once been part of the Prussian Empire. But during my father's childhood, it switched back and forth between Polish and Russian rule. My father used to say, I have a grade 3 education - but I did grades 1 to 3 three times: once in German, once in Polish and once in Russian!

Although his family was German, his mother named him Wladyslaw, which is not a German name. It's the Polish form of the Russian name, Vladymir (the W pronounced like a "V"). Perhaps she thought a Polish name would serve him well in a Polish country... Or perhaps she simply liked the name! In any event, he was called Wladyslaw - or "Wladik" for short.

But when, at the age of 19, my father immigrated to Canada, his name immediately posed a problem: Nobody could understand it.

What's your name? people would ask.

Wladyslaw, he would answer... only to be met by blank stares.

Wladik, he repeated, using the diminutive form.

Oh, Dick! they replied. Short form of Richard.

So "Dick" he became - and "Richard" eventually became the middle name of his son.

Fast forward six decades... My father, now in his 80s, returned to Europe to visit family and childhood friends after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And, of course, when they visited his relatives, my mother referred to him as "Dick" not "Wladyslaw."

My father had always been a thin, small man. "There wasn't enough to eat when I was growing up, so I never grew to full size..." was his explanation.

But now his German relatives were puzzled. The man they knew as "Wladyslaw" was now being called "Dick" by his wife. And in German "dick" means "fat"!

I don't understand why you call him "dick," one relative told my mother. He never has been "dick"... (Or, in German, "fat"!)