Biography Youth Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales in , to Norwegian parents, Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl née Hesselberg. Roald was named after the polar explorer Roald Amundsen, a national hero in Norway at the time. In , when Roald was three, his seven-year-old sister, Astri, died from appendicitis.