How Shrek got his name

Perhaps I’m coming late to this, but I’m astonished to discover that Shrek is a Member Of the Tribe.

How so? According to the NYT, one of the relatively new additions to the Yiddish language is the word “shreklekh” – meaning, terrible or frightening.

Of course I initially thought that the word had entered the language after the movie come out. But no. According to this source, Shrek – originally a character in a book - derived his name from the Yiddish.

So there you have it: the green monster is really a good Jewish boy.