Mr. Lippincott, a truck driver, said Mr. Campbell went through a Confederate flag phase a few years ago, but was now into swastikas, which decorated the apartment and were etched in skull decals on his car.

Image Heath and Deborah Campbell with their son, Adolf Hitler Campbell. The boy, 3, and two younger siblings, also with Nazi-related names, have been removed from their parents custody. Officials say that was not done because of the name choices. Credit... Rich Schultz/Associated Press

Mr. Campbell, a collector of German combat knives, also wears Nazi-era boots and, according to Mr. Lippincott, likes to click his heels together. A neighbor, Robert Heckman, said Mr. Campbell had boasted to him about using government money to pay for his cigarettes. Mr. Lippincott said he had decided  before the cake incident  not to renew the Campbells’ lease when it expired in November because, he said, a relative they frequently argue with threatened to “firebomb the house.” He expects to begin eviction proceedings soon.

“They’re not destroying anything, the house is clean and they pay their rent on time,” he said. But, he added, “There comes a point when you say, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

The Holland Township police chief, David Van Gilson, said that officers have answered noise complaints and domestic incidents at the apartment, but never received complaints of child abuse, although he said other agencies could have.

Chief Van Gilson speculated that information about the children’s treatment may have surfaced after Mr. Campbell sought publicity about the birthday cake incident from the local newspaper, the Express-Times, in Easton, Pa. “That was his whole purpose  to get sympathy for the cake  and it just snowballed from there,” he said. Indeed, blogs and newspaper Web sites have reported incendiary information about Mr. Campbell’s previous marriage, including a few comments from a woman who identified herself as his former mother-in-law and wrote that her daughter had to talk him out of naming one of their children Satan. Others wrote to say that, to their mind, the simple act of naming children after Hitler and Himmler constituted abuse.

“How in the world do these so-called parents expect these kids to survive in life with monikers like this?” wrote one reader of the Express-Times, which broke the story in mid-December. “The kids were doomed the day they were named.”

Melanie Campbell, who lives in Holland Township, has found her seemingly safe choice of names for her daughter, Heather, now causing problems because of its similarity to Mr. Campbell’s name. Her address and phone number popped up in Internet searches of Mr. Campbell, who does not have a home phone.