Hi Swistle-

I’ve been reading your blog for a long time. As a 1980 Jennifer, I find naming trends very interesting. I also knew after naming our first son, that if we were to have any more male children, we’d be in trouble and would need your help.

My husband is Benjamin (Ben) and my 4yr old son is Noah Jacob. As one of many Jennifers, we didn’t pick Noah because of it’s popularity. It really was the only name we could agree on that we both liked (neither loved). My husband liked it a little more than me; Jacob was husband’s favorite name that go round. What we do like about Noah’s name is that all 3 names have very different sounds. Our last name is Herman, that starts with an S. The biblical theme is purely coincidental. DH is Jewish and I was raised Catholic but neither of us are very religious.

Baby boy #2 is due in January and we’ve begun looking at names with some trepidation. We think we are pretty set on the first name Matthew. I like it a bit more than husband, but it was a contender last time around and again pretty much the only name we are both in agreement on.

We are struggling in the middle name spot. I’d like something with a bit of a harder sound to balance the “thew” and “Sh..man” sounds. My pick is Elliot; I don’t love the name, but I like the sound. DH likes Issac in the same vein; I’m not as keen on this one. Secondary question: both of these would spell MES and MIS respectfully. I don’t think either is a deal breaker, but I know you are less a fan of initials that spell something. Should we worry about this?

The other thought is to honor a family member. DH’s middle name is Samuel, named after an Uncle Sam. He was close to his grandfather so we’ve been playing around with that a bit. Family names on my side have been well represented with other family members.

DH’s grandfather’s name was Sanford N. *herman. Apparently, his name was originally Samuel; when starting a business here in the US he changed his name to Sanford because it sounded more businessman-like and chose the middle initial N. However, he didn’t like the name Sanford and went by the nickname Shep exclusively. As far as we know, Shep was just chosen without significance like Skip, Buck, etc. What would we chose as the name? Samuel is out since DH has never liked it, Grandfather didn’t like Sanford, and Shep is a made up nickname. Should we use Shepard? Though I’m worried about the biblical theme of Matthew Shepard; we aren’t planning on any more children but it just seems odd in comparison to our actual personalities. Is Shep a stand alone name? Should we use pick another S name (though we’ve been through the list without any grabbers)? Do we worry about the alliteration of the middle to last name? My guess is we let that go if we are doing an honor name.

Here were possible contenders for this baby. Our girl name most likely would have been Lila.

Mine:
Alexander
Andrew/Drew
Gray (vetoed by him)
Max (vetoed by him)

Husband:
Adam
Caleb (vetoed by me)
Joel

Thanks for your help!
Jenn

It’s true I don’t generally like initials to spell anything, but MES and MIS don’t spell anything, unless there’s an acronym I’m not familiar with. I suppose we could say they spell MESS and MISS, sort of, and with initials such as FUK I would indeed consider even the misspelled word an issue—but with MES and MIS, I don’t think of mess/miss, and it doesn’t bother me even when I do.

I think if you wanted to honor a Samuel who changed his name to Sandford and was known as Shep, you could probably pick any of those three names. I’d lean toward whichever one most brings the person to mind; I’d also lean toward Samuel, since that’s a triple family honor name: your husband, your husband’s uncle, and your husband’s grandfather. I don’t think I’d be likely to use Shepherd—not because of religious issues (I had to think for a moment to figure out why it would be religious, even though I grew up fully immersed in Jesus-as-shepherd metaphors), but because it seems to go a step too far from the honoree: the name situation is peculiar enough (he chose the name Sandford himself, even though he didn’t like it, and then chose an unrelated nickname) without making it even more peculiar. But we could instead think of it this way: once we’re such a distance from the man’s original name, what’s one more step? And you wouldn’t need to say the whole story; you’d just say the middle name was Shepherd, “after his great-grandfather.”

Certainly Shep can be a stand-alone name, particularly for the middle name, particularly for an honor name: it would be a somewhat unusual choice, but easy to explain (“Named for his great-grandfather, who was known as Shep”) and it wouldn’t be likely to come up often. Matthew Shep Sh_____ is perhaps not ideal in sound, but it’s fine. If you did want to lengthen Shep, and you wanted to reduce the shepherd connection, you could spell it like the surname instead: Matthew Shepard Sh_____. I do think that’s handsome, though it reminds me of the sad Matthew Shepard story.

But if your husband doesn’t like the name Samuel, and you don’t want to use the name Sandford because the man who chose it for himself didn’t like the name, and Shep/Shepherd/Shepard doesn’t seem right either, it may just be that this grandfather is not a good candidate for an honor name.

It does seem simpler to choose one of your other favorite middle names. Since your husband liked the name Noah a little more than you did and also got his favorite name as the middle name, it seems as if the most balanced plan would be to use one of your favorite names as middle name this time around: Elliot, perhaps, or maybe another name off your first-name list. Matthew Alexander $herman is nice.

Name update!

Hi there-
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions on naming our second baby boy. Matthew David was born a few days early on Jan. 14th weighing 7lbs 9oz 20inches long.

Using a family honor name pretty much went out the window once my husband learned that he was also named after his grandfather’s original name and he didn’t need to be honored again. David was picked for the middle because of the harder sounds we both liked. We are enjoying our new family of 4 and think his name fits him perfectly.

Thanks again! Picture attached with big brother, Noah
Jenn