What was the full name of Richard Feynman's father?

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What was the full name of Richard Feynman’s father? His full name was Melville Arthur Feynman.

Melville Arthur Feynman was a sales manager and the father of Richard Phillips Feynman, who was born in Queens, New York City, in 1918. Melville married Lucille Phillips in 1917; she later became an important influence on Richard’s humor and curiosity.

Richard often credited his father with teaching him to question conventional explanations rather than simply accepting them. Melville encouraged him to ask why things worked and helped cultivate the habit of explaining complicated ideas clearly. That early influence became part of the personality associated with the adult physicist and popular science communicator.

Melville was born into a Jewish family connected with Minsk in the Russian Empire and immigrated to the United States with his parents at age five. The answer can be confused with Richard’s middle name, Phillips, which came from his mother’s family; Arthur was part of his father’s name, not Richard’s.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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