I’m excited to be able to write to you because we are name enthusiasts and have been talking about our future children’s names for the past decade, with shockingly little spousal disagreement, so I never thought we’d be in a position have a Baby Naming Crisis.<\/p>\n
But, it turns out we DO have a naming dilemma, recently created by the News Corp Scandal. (Story in a nutshell: the company of Rupert Murdoch and son James Murdoch has been involved in a whole lot of illegal phone hacking and then the usual cover-up, leading to the cancellation of a major tabloid and a publication of an apology in every British newspaper.) We’re in the US, but it seems potentially likely that there will be upcoming legal action on our side of the pond coming up as well.<\/p>\n
The issue is that the name we’d picked out for our second boy (due in October, so not just hypothetical) is Rupert James, containing BOTH of the names of the Murdochs associated with this scandal. Rupert has long been one of the Spouse’s most favorite names, to which I’ve been won over by many years of mulling over and then the reading of lots of Jilly Cooper. James is a family name from her side (we feel it’s important to honor her side of the family this time because they don’t have any genetic connection to this pregnancy).<\/p>\n
We’d like to know what broad consensus is on two questions:
\n1.) Whether the scandal is so high profile for the average person (especially Americans) that using the name Rupert is currently inadvisable.
\n2.) If Rupert is still usable, whether its combination with James would push the combination over into “not such a good idea” category.<\/p>\n
On the first, we’re tending towards just using Rupert anyway. Though the name has not been shared with anyone yet, it really has felt like the name for this baby for a very long time and we recently bought letters for decorating the nursery (granted, a $8 investment at the craft store, but still symbolic). There are a lot of other associations for Rupert, including the Harry Potter movie press flurry following the release of the last movie, but we are curious to see if this is a much bigger deal for other people, so we can make an informed choice. We do suspect that the grandparents will do a bit of pearl clutching and “Oh, REALLY, like the News Corp Scandal!!?!”, but they won’t get the name until it’s presented to them alongside a cute baby, and I think the cute grandchild will then be their primary association for the name from that moment forward.<\/p>\n
But, in the event that the first and middle combination might be a bit too much in light of the current events, we’re now rethinking the middle name choices.<\/p>\n
Our general naming style is pretty well summed up by first names at home in a Masterpiece Theater production, paired with more currently fashionable middle names honoring family members. We prefer there to be a bit of first\/middle name contrast, both for stylistic reasons and to make sure that there is a less controversial\/distinctive name choice available to our child if they want to blend in more. In this case that’s especially important since Rupert doesn’t yield many nickname options. Son #1 is named an old variant of Julian popularized by the Forsyte Saga, with the middle name Max. (We’d prefer that Son #1’s first name not be directly mentioned because it is super-googleable.) We plan to have another two children (or possibly three) after this, and we’re pretty well set with sibling names, since we’ve been talking about names for a good ten years now.<\/p>\n
Middle name choices for Rupert drawn from the spouse’s family tree, once we’ve weeded out all the awesome A-names that would make initials spell RAG:<\/p>\n
* James, which we thought we’d settled on as being both very fresh feeling and a family name, that would provide RJ as a nickname as well as James and all its derivatives if Rupert ever proved unsuitable.
\n* George, which we both love! The Spouse thinks of Rupert as very British rather than fusty, and George as a former American standard that’s outdated to the point of being picked up by hipsters soon… so while they’re both currently at a nadir in their popularity curves, they don’t have a similar feel to her. However, I’m unsure whether George is too similar in feel to Rupert.
\no We have eliminated Ernest and Maurice on the grounds that they would not be providing our son with a good alternate name to go by if he wants a non-fusty, non-British-feeling name at any point in his life. These names just seem too much paired with Rupert, so ruled out despite the very positive nature of the namesakes. I’m worried that George might be the same, though to a lesser extent.
\n* Michael, a name we aren’t that keen on by itself, but which certainly provides a safe alternative and contrast with Rupert. However, it’s likely to stir up drama because the grandfather it’s honoring is currently undergoing a not-so-amicable divorce, and choosing that name right now is likely to make the grandmother being divorced feel angry and betrayed… sort of undoing the whole intent of “promoting family bonding” in picking a middle name from the Spouse’s side in the first place. So, I think this one may be off the table for reasons of family current events rather than national ones.<\/p>\n
If we were opening the discussion to names from my side of the family (still thinking about this), we would add Henry, which we both adore. It is very popular locally and therefore more of an established Antique Revival than the Daring Outmoded Choice it might still be in other parts of the country.<\/p>\n
We’d be tremendously grateful to hear any insights from you and commentators, but would especially welcome a poll to collect a large sample size of data about the usability of Rupert and Rupert James in light of the News Corp Scandal. A middle-name-off between James\/George\/Michael\/Henry would be a happy perk but not as essential.<\/p>\n
Many many thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nI read the question, thought about it for a week, and then read it carefully again to make sure, but my opinion has stayed steady throughout: I think Rupert James is still completely usable, and also that it seems pretty clearly the best choice for this baby. I had heard of the scandal, but the association still didn’t spring to mind: I think first of Rupert Everett, then of Rupert Grint, then of Rupert Friend. The name James seems almost neutral to me: I didn’t think of James Murdoch even after having Rupert Murdoch called to mind.<\/p>\n
BUT! You and I are in agreement that what is needed here is a poll. I can say all day long that it doesn’t rule it out for ME, but what we need is a large SAMPLE of opinions. Let’s have a poll over to the right! [Poll closed; see results below.]<\/p>\n
And also, if you do decide to rule it out, I think Rupert George is wonderful.<\/p>\n
[Sigh. Did I put “News Crop” instead of “News Corp” in the poll? Yes. Is it now unfixable without ruining the poll and starting over? Yes. So do we just all have to pretend I did NOT make that mistake? PLEASE DO.]<\/p>\n
![\"Rupert\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Rupert.png\")
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Name update!<\/strong> Guinevere writes:<\/p>\n I went into labor on my due date and two days later we welcomed Rupert James! I’d like to thank you and your readership again for being so very, very helpful in the naming of our wee fellow, who turned out not to be so wee after all (10 pounds, 10 ounces and 22 inches). We’re finally home after a fortnight at the hospital, and during that time a steady stream of neonatologists and nurses all expressed very positive reactions to the name, as did our families. We continued to dither about the middle name until the very end of labor, but when he was born and looked not at all like a wrinkly disapproving old man we felt very much justified in having a Rupert James and not a Rupert George. We appreciate so very very much that you all provided us with high quality thoughtful comments and a large statistically significant survey so we could make a fully informed decision!<\/p>\n Picture attached!<\/p>\n Guinevere writes: I’m excited to be able to write to you because we are name enthusiasts and have been talking about our future children’s names for the past decade, with shockingly little spousal disagreement, so I never thought we’d be in a position have a Baby Naming Crisis. But, it turns out we DO have […]<\/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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1Dr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6289","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=6289"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9768,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6289\/revisions\/9768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"RupertJ\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/RupertJ.jpg\")
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