Completely silly fact: knowing 0 about the guy except that he gave his name to the famous algorithm, I had somehow assumed he was Indian. Weird to see a white Dutchman in the picture.
All comes down to some degree of "linguistic intuition", that one acquires from not necessarily speaking foreign languages, but some exposure and proximity to them. My bet is that most Europeans, faced with "Edsger Dijkstra" would have instinctively pointed towards the general direction of Holland and upwards.
I knew an Indian woman named Divya, perhaps my mind thought it looked similar in print?
I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision. It’s similar to how I always pictured Jane Austen as a sarcastic woman in her forties while reading her books, but she wrote her most famous works being borderline a teenager. Your mind just fills things up I guess.