The Yugoslavian dictator known as Marshal Tito, was born Josip Broz (Јосип Броз in Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic). Without boring you with all the details, his fairly checkered past included some time in prison and upon his release in 1934, he was required to live in Kumrovec (where he was born) and report to the police each day. Needless to say, he didn’t do so and often travelled using false passports to avoid detection.
Since he was wanted by the police for failing to report to them in Kumrovec, Broz adopted various false names, including “Rudi” and “Tito” and he used the name “Tito” to write articles for Communist party journals. That said, within the Comintern network his nickname was “Walter.” Although he never explained why he chose to keep the name “Tito” (it was a fairly common nickname in Kumrovec) it stuck!
In 1892, when Tito was born, Kumrovec was a village in the northern Croatian region of Hrvatsko Zagorje, which was then part of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.