Richard Selig Reti

Richard Reti. Credit: Wikipedia.

In a serendipitous find, an acquaintance, Alon Schab, researching his own ancestry, had stumbled upon Reti's birth record. The exact details are found in Edward Winter's Chess Notes no. 8629, with a complete photograph of the birth certificate and credits.

As noted there, it turns out that while his "gentile" name was Richard, his "Jewish" name was Selig (זעליק), as the birth certificate clearly shows. Incidentally, Schab, a musicologist, reminds us that Richard Reti's older brother, Rudolf Reti, was as talented in his field, music, as Richard was in chess.

P.S.

Yes, Richard Reti's name (though not his brother's, according to Wikipedia at least) is spelled with an accent on the "e", but I have no idea how to make "Blogger" type such a character... or rather it requires, apparently, all kinds of html code tinkering which, from experience, I never manage to get quite right.