{"id":14720,"date":"2020-05-04T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T13:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14720"},"modified":"2020-05-04T12:20:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T16:20:39","slug":"baby-boy-tewrd-brother-to-ford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2020\/05\/04\/baby-boy-tewrd-brother-to-ford\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy $tew@rd, Brother to Ford"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

We are due with our second (and last planned child) this fall. Our toddler is Ford @rthur $tew@rd. We love his name. It\u2019s short and strong, but we do sing-song it as Fordie daily.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re mulling over a few options this time around and my main question is your opinion on Bernhard, nn Bern which I admit I will surely sing song into Bernie from time to time. I think the majority of the time we would call him Bern. I think Ford and Bern compliment one another well.<\/p>\n

That being said, my concern is whether or not Bernie is too politicized… Bernhard is a (distant) family name for us, we don\u2019t have strong opinions on Bernie Sanders one way or another but people around us do. I cringe at the possible inquiries of \u201clike Bernie Sanders?\u201d to which we *could* answer, \u201cit\u2019s a family name\u201d and leave it at that, but it may bother me if those inquiries or associations go on for years… We are NOT the type of people that debate politics as dinner conversation and tend to avoid sharing opinions one way or another.<\/p>\n

Other front runners are Frederick \u201cFritz\u201d Murray or Murray Thomas. Middle name for Bernhard would be Thomas.<\/p>\n

So to summarize:
\nBernhard Thomas $tew@rd
\nFrederick Murray $tew@rd
\nMurray Thomas $tew@rd<\/p>\n

*Thomas and Murray are honor names for grandfathers (one deceased, one a middle name of the living) and Frederick would be in honor of our little one\u2019s only living great grandmother as it was her father\u2019s name. Ford @rthur was equally tied to family with each name honoring a different side of the family.<\/p>\n

Which goes best with Ford? Is Bern too strongly associated with Bernie Sanders and if so, do you think that association will lessen over time (considering he is no longer a candidate for president and we don\u2019t live on the east coast)?<\/p>\n

Mostly I just love your taste in names and am curious if one of our three options makes your heart sing more than another. :-)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think part of the package deal of Bernhard-nicknamed-Bern\/Bernie is that people will have to assume you’re at least okay with the Bernie Sanders \/ “Feel the Bern” association. Imagine for a moment a politician you can’t stand, someone whose policies and views make you shudder with revulsion, and then imagine using a distant family name that made people say “Oh, like [that politician]?” You’d never! And so I do think using the name Bern\/Bernie right now may seem to indicate a political opinion, and that “It’s a family name” won’t be enough to counteract that.<\/p>\n

But as to how long that will persist—it’s hard to know. Sometimes after a name comes abruptly into the news we will get a big flurry of letters wondering if it’s still okay to use it—but even just a few years later the whole thing has slipped out of public consciousness. If I meet a baby named George, I don’t assume his parents are fans of the Bush administrations or the royal family, because those associations have had time to diffuse. But George is an old and traditional name with many associations including not just Bush but also Washington and Burns and Clooney and Lucas and R. R. Martin and Michael and Lopez and Gershwin and Eliot; if I met a baby named Clinton, I’d have fewer associations and would do more wondering\/assuming. Bernhard\/Bern\/Bernie is not a name with many associations for me. And Bernie Sanders is still an active politician, and I think it’s likely we’ll continue to see him in the news as long as that’s the case. On the other hand, the man is 78 years old, and it’ll be another five or so years before your new baby is starting school. Still, if it makes you cringe to think of people making the association or making assumptions about your political opinions, I think I’d use a different name, or use Bernhard as a middle name.<\/p>\n

Ford and Fritz is a nice pairing. I think my main concern would be that he would instead prefer to be called Fred\/Freddie, and that Ford\/Fordie and Fred\/Freddie were too similar. I’m also finding I don’t like how many letters\/sounds Ford and Frederick already share, even before taking nicknames into account. The styles of the names also feel different. I don’t know, this combination just doesn’t sit right with me; I only like it when it’s Ford and Fritz, not when it’s Ford and Frederick or Ford and Fred, and I don’t like the idea of relying on a particular nickname to make a combination work.<\/p>\n

The one that makes my heart sing more than the others is Murray. I would be charmed to encounter that name in the wild, and I like it with Ford: another surname name, but with its own set of sounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! We are due with our second (and last planned child) this fall. Our toddler is Ford @rthur $tew@rd. We love his name. It\u2019s short and strong, but we do sing-song it as Fordie daily. We\u2019re mulling over a few options this time around and my main question is your opinion on Bernhard, nn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3Pq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14720"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14728,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14720\/revisions\/14728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}