Where do I come from - for real?

I was having this random conversation the other night with Dreamy Eyes after Krav class. We were talking about my last name and I told him it was German. I tell everyone that my name is German. I am quite proud of that heritage. In fact, when I was over in Austria, I was flattered to see my named splayed across building after building as it means tobacco in German. Very popular name.

Unmoved by my genealogy, Dreamy Eyes said if I pronounced it with a slight variation it sounded Israeli. He thought that was funny since I'm Jewish and we were in an Israeli martial arts class. For some reason I found this funny too.

Wanting to share the humor over the oddity of our family name, I repeated it a few days later to my father in another very random conversation.

Note to self - start having meaningful conversations that have some substance rather than random exchanges of nothingness.

My father just rolled his eyes, shook his head and made the most unexpected declaration I've ever heard.

"Our name isn't German. It's Russian."

I was aghast. "That's not true. It means tobacco in German."

"It means tobacco in French too. Doesn't mean you're French. My father was from Russia."

My mother pipes in. "I think my father's family was from Germany. But my father hated Germans because of the war."

So there is a small part of me that is German, although there is apparent reluctance to shout it out from the family tree.

I spent my entire life believing my name was German and I therefore was predominantly German. How did I not know my namesake, my direct lineage is Russian?

That must have been the third of me that's a Pollack.