- A name doesn’t make a man, but give us a break here!
“What’s in a name?” asked Juliet while courting Romeo in the famous Shakespeare play. And she has a good point.
Very few of us have chosen our own names, and judging someone based on their name is generally considered rude. It’s not your fault if your parents happened to really like the Game of Thrones and named you Daenerys or something.
But there’s of course a limit, just like with everything. Some names have been forever tarnished by their infamous wearers, and anyone in their right mind would try to distance themselves from them.
A case in point, take the last name Hitler. It’s just an Austrian name, but you really, really don’t want to share a name with the genocidal Nazi leader.
Having said that, do we have a doozy of a story for you. Adolf Hitler recently won a local election in Namibia by a landslide, becoming the councilor for the Ompundja Constituency in the north of the country.
No, the good people of Namibia didn’t vote the German ex-Führer into power. The newly-elected Hitler is just a man who happens to have an extremely unfortunate namesake.
He managed to get 1,196 votes, meaning that he has the support of nearly 85% of the constituency. Clearly the people of Ompundja don’t judge a book by its cover – or should we say title.
In fact, Mr. Hitler managed to defy a national trend. He represents Namibia’s SWAPO party, which overwhelmingly lost its ruling majority in the country’s parliament.
Still, though… We’re not so sure if we could’ve brought ourselves to vote for Adolf Hitler.
Not Your Grandpa’s Hitler
But the man behind the name is nothing like the Hitler we all know. In fact, he’s about as far from a Nazi as you can get.
Adolf Hitler Uunona – as his full name goes – started his political career with the former anti-apartheid fighters that went on to form the SWAPO party, German newspaper Bild reported. That should be enough to convince anyone that this man holds no sympathies for the Führer.
Speaking to the Bild, Mr. Uunona confirmed that he has no plans to follow in the footsteps of his namesake.
“Just because I have this name doesn’t mean that I want to subjugate Oshana now. Neither does it mean that I strive for world domination,” he told the newspaper, laughing.
“I have nothing to do with these things,” he added.
The Namibian Hitler said that it was his father who came up with his name. He assumes that his father only thought of it as a famous foreign name.
“My father named me after this man. He probably didn’t understand what Adolf Hitler stood for,” he said.
When he was a child, Uunona didn’t get any strange reactions to his name. It was just that, a name among many others.
“It was a completely normal name for me as a child. It was not until I was growing up that I realized that this man wanted to subjugate the whole world,” he said, recounting his experience upon finding out about his name sake.
In private, his wife simply calls him by his first name. In public, Uunona generally drops his middle name, simply going by Adolf Uunona.
When asked if he planned a name change, Uunona said it was too late. His name is on all official documents and he had already won a political office under it.
Not So Strange, After All
When Uunona says his name seemed perfectly normal to him as a child, he means it. Germany used to colonize Namibia, and as a result German names are common all over the place.
Namibia has a German-language newspaper and TV stations, and there are plenty of German street and place names. According to Bild, the country even has a small German-speaking minority.
Just to give an example, Uunona’s SWAPO party’s headquarters are located on the “Hans Dietrich Genscher Strasse”. Add some bratwurst and you might think you’re in Germany.
But the colonial heritage is not all good. According to the BBC, between 1904 and 1908, the German Empire violently suppressed a local revolt in what some historians call “the forgotten genocide”.
Some places with German are pushing back against this historical package. For example, the town of Luderitz – built during the colonial era through forced labor – is considering changing its name to the local Nama language.
Should the town decide to change its name, Luderitz would in the future be known as ?Nami?Nûs.
It’s a powerful statement against colonial rule. We just need a couple of pointers on how to pronounce the new name.
The Real Living Hitlers
But while Adolf Hitler Uunona has no connection to the German dictator, others do. The last living members of the Hitler family reside in the United States.
How on Earth did that happen? It’s all due to their father, William Patrick Hitler.
Born in the UK, William – or Willy, as he was known – was the nephew of Führer Adolf Hitler. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1930, and actually spent WWII fighting against his relative’s armies with the U.S. Navy.
It’s no wonder that his uncle absolutely loathed Willy. Fearing retribution from surviving Nazis – and because his last name wasn’t exactly in fashion post-war – Willy changed the family name to Hiller in 1946.
Later still, the remaining remnants of the Hitler family became known as the Stuart-Houstons. Willy and his wife Phyllis had four children – three of which are still alive today.
For understandable reasons, the three men don’t like publicity. Oddee would like to respect their privacy and not list their full names here.
Just remember, a person’s name doesn’t define them – nor do the deeds of their possible infamous relatives. That said, try not to name your kids after any dictators, okay?