I am always asked if my parents did not know about Hitler or they liked him because of their German heritage. I know you are thinking it too! But if your name happens to be Joseph do people ask if you were named after Stalin or Göbels? It really is a simple story my dearest mom wanted to become a concert pianist. She almost quit piano until she started taking lessons from the legendary concert pianist Adolph Hallis. He was and inspiration so I got named after him. Later we found some old birth certificate of a great great grandfather named Adolph Gustav... so it is a family name. If you studied a bit of history, or you happen to be Swedish, you probably recognise that name as the king of Sweden.
When I was 17 I remember going into a shop to get some snacks, it was late at night and I was a bit tired. I went to the cashier and saw the guys name tag read Adolph, even spelled with a "PH"! You can't imagine how often people spell my name with an "F" it is really annoying. Because Adolph spelled with a "PH" is a totally different name from Adolf! You laugh but, but I know many guys with the name Nicholas who spell their names Nick or Nic and don't like it any other way. But I digress, this was the first time in my life, that I met someone with my name we shook hands and were happy to know other Adolphs exist. I really wish I took his contact details. Until this point, I didn't know anyone with the name Adolph besides Hitler and Hallis, both of whom are dead.
Not long after this encounter, I saw a huge Road sign pointing towards a place called "Adolphskraal" (again written with a PH) my mom immediately stopped the car to take a photo of it. I was not the only one, this was comforting somehow. I mean really it seems as if the only other person in the world with this name was Hitler? None of the other Adolphs ever get mentioned!
When I went to university, I studied theology and in our first semester we spoke about Adolf von Harnack. Everyone turned to look at me amazed, "were you named after him?" When I started to meet some other theologians people were not saying, "oh like Hitler" anymore but "oh like von Harnack." What was going on!
A few years later for my Birthday some of my friends gave me a list of people with the name Adolph. The list included Adolph Dassler the founder of Addidas, and Adolph Rickenbacker the inventor of the electric guitar that the Beatles played on. It also had a Mexican restaurant owner and some random other Adolphs. It was at this time that I suggested to them the idea of my book and this started the journey of finding all the other Adolphs out there. I started collecting about 4 years ago, too scared to really start a blog or a book. But I think it is about time I live up to my namesakes, ranging from artists, and botanists, to spies and zoologists and of course authors. I hope in these blog posts you will learn about all the other Adolphs of the world who changed the world for the better.