Kwee Tjoen An was born in Temanggung Regency, Central Java, the only son and one of five children of a Chinese Indonesian father in the leather business and a Javanese mother. His Chinese side of family had lived in Java for many generations. His paternal grandfather went to Chinese temples, his paternal grandmother was a Christian, and his mother was originally a Muslim. Kwee Tjoen An was always raised a Christian. While in elementary school, like many other ethnic Chinese who changed their names during the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, he changed his name to Didik Hadiprayitno in 1965.