Fidel Castro's Real Name: Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz

Quick answer: Fidel Castro's full name was Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz. He was born on August 13, 1926, near Birán in eastern Cuba, and died on November 25, 2016. He led the 1959 Cuban Revolution and ruled Cuba until 2008, turning it into the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere (Britannica; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

Britannica lists him as "also known as: Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz." The Library of Congress files him as "Castro, Fidel, 1926-2016," with the variant "Castro Ruz, Fidel." One LOC citation reads "Fidel Castro Ruz, b. Aug. 13, 1926 (some sources give 1927)," so a 1927 birth year also appears in older records.

Britannica says his father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, was a Spanish immigrant and fairly prosperous sugarcane farmer. His mother, Lina Ruz González, had worked in the household, and Ángel later married her. They had seven children, including Fidel and Raúl, who became his chief associate. Fidel attended Catholic boarding schools in Santiago de Cuba and Belén, a Catholic high school in Havana. He was named Havana's outstanding schoolboy athlete in 1943–44. He entered the University of Havana's law school in 1945, where politics consumed him, and graduated in 1950.

Career highlights

He practiced law and became a candidate for the reformist Cuban People's Party before Fulgencio Batista seized power in March 1952 and canceled elections. On July 26, 1953, Castro led about 160 men in an attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Most were killed, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Released in a 1955 amnesty, he went to Mexico and organized the 26th of July Movement.

In December 1956 he landed in Cuba with 81 men aboard the yacht Granma. Most were killed or captured, but he, Raúl, Che Guevara, and a few others waged guerrilla war from the Sierra Maestra. Batista fled, and Castro took power in January 1959. He nationalized businesses, seized U.S.-owned estates, and allied with the Soviet Union. The U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs landing in April 1961 was crushed, and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world close to nuclear war.

Britannica says he built a one-party state that ruthlessly suppressed dissent while expanding free education, health care, and guaranteed employment. It also describes him as an inept economic manager. He was premier until 1976 and then president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers. He handed provisional power to Raúl in 2006 for health reasons and formally gave up the presidency in February 2008.

Name notes for searchers

Castro is his father's surname and Ruz his mother's, following Spanish naming custom, and Alejandro is his middle name. LOC records transliterations such as "Kastro, Fidelʹ" from Russian.