Adam Gadahn was born Adam Pearlman in Orange County. His father, acclaimed 60s underground psychedelic musician Phil Pearlman, was the one who chose the name Gadahn. Phil Pearlman founded the West Coast group Beat of the Earth, a band often compared by critics to their East Coast counterpart, the Velvet Underground. Though this part of the story might have caused a few in middle America to pause, Californians are accustomed to living with leftover 60s culture, from the Heal the Bay movement to the Krishna festivals on Venice Beach. So its not strange that a gifted 60s counterculture hero, the son of a Jewish urologist and a Christian housewife, would change his name to Gadahn shortly after getting married because (according to a former band mate) they wanted a name that meant nothing. Also not strange was that they moved to a farm in rural Riverside County and took up the profession of raising and humanely slaughtering goats for market. Equally not strange is that Adam and his siblings were home-schooled and raised without running water and electricity. Eccentric, West Coast, out there in la la land, but not strange.
>>Holy cow!
His Aunt, Nancy Pearlman, is a big wig in the California Green/Communist party.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Nancy+Pearlman%22+green