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[Opinions] Re: Baby name
in reply to a message by KK
My late father-in-law played tennis at a club in Johannesburg for many years. Among the other members was a man named Adolf; we never asked why, but he was a quiet, rather silly person and always known as Dolfie. Adolf, and Adolfus/Adolphus, are not widely used here in South Africa, but they do happen. Among the Afrikaans-speaking community are people of German as well as Dutch ancestry for whom it could well be a family name rather than a political statement. The country now known as Namibia used to be a German colony, for instance, and it's right next door to us. South African schools with boarding facilities used to get a few children from there, if their parents wanted them to learn English and Afrikaans as well as German, or just thought our schools were better; I don't know about that.

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