This is a Swedish name (we pronounce it "ride").  My father's parents were immigrants as young children.  Their families settled in Chicago around 1900 in adjacent neighborhoods.  Eventually, Axel and Emelia met, married, and blossomed into their own family tree.  I'm proud of my heritage and pray that I am worthy to carry on the legacy my grandparents left me.

There's actually a bit of legend with the name, too.  Apparently, the family name at some point was Gustovson, which followed the Swedish custom of naming a son after his father or ancestor (who in this case was "Gustov").  But during a war many years ago, the name got changed to Ryd.

I've heard two explanations as to why the name was changed.  The first explanation is that the Gustovson clan had grown so large that during the war there were simply too many Gustovsons to manage.  They decided to refer to them by the village where they came from, which in our family's case was the village of Ryd.  (This is the explanation handed down by my grandmother.)