EB writes:<\/p>\n
My husband is a third, and if we have a baby boy, we will name him as a fourth, IV. My question is: What are some nicknames that we can call him having to do with the number four? For instance, a third might be called Trey, and a fifth might be called Quin. I have never heard of what a fourth might be called.<\/p>\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\nIf you know of any good names for a fourth off the top of your head or if you don’t mind querying your readers, I would so appreciate any help you can give.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nOh, I’m so glad that someone has given me the opportunity to show off about a little-known naming rule! This rule was a huge source of conflict between me and my high school boyfriend (he was a III). Here is the rule: Only popes and royalty keep their placeholders permanently.<\/p>\n
Let’s say Ronald Jones Sr. has a son named Ronald Jones Jr. and a grandson named Ronald Jones III. And then let’s say Ronald Jones Sr. shuffles off this mortal coil. As of his death, Ronald Jones Jr. becomes Ronald Jones Sr., and Ronald Jones III becomes Ronald Jones Jr. This means that in most families, there is no need (or only a brief need) for a IV, and this is one reason there are so few good established nicknames.<\/p>\n
However, perhaps you have noticed that this naming rule is unfamiliar? It’s because people (MALE people) get all possessive about their dangley little suffixes, and also because they like the idea of their Illustrious Name stretching onward for generations, and how does anyone know how MANY generations unless we keep adding numbers? If you tried to apply the naming rule correctly at this point, you’d just confuse everyone. “But I always thought you were Ronald Jones JUNIOR!,” people would say, shocked and alarmed. “But wait! Shouldn’t your son be V?” The mail mix-ups would be astonishing.<\/p>\n
This means we need nicknames for a IV, and there really aren’t many, are there? Unlike III, which gives us cute foreign variations such as Tres\/Trey and the cute short form of triple “Trip,” the foreign versions of the number four tend to be more like “Quatre,” and the short form of quadruple would be “Quad.” Not much to harvest there. And even though “IV” could be pronounced “Eye-vee,” I don’t think we want to go that route either.<\/p>\n
I wonder about Ivan. It’s a stretch, but so is “Trip,” really. Desperate times call for desperate measures, is what I’m saying. Ivan is a nice name, and it’s a neat visual play on IV.<\/p>\n
Got any Dutch or German in your background? The Dutch\/German word for four is “vier,” pronounced like “veer to the left.” Vier is…well, it’s unusual, name-wise! But it’s a good sound and I think it works. You would of course be constantly explaining it, but people are likely to (1) understand and (2) like it.<\/p>\n
Or I wonder if you could just call him Fourth. It has a good sound, if you say it out loud. It makes me think of the boy’s name Ford, which I like (Douglas Adams fan).<\/p>\n
I think if it were me, I would go for a different sort of nickname, based on the name instead of on the ranking. Your husband’s rank gets all the cute nicknames, unfortunately for your future son. If I wanted a four-related name, though, my top choice is Fourth.<\/p>\n
Does anyone else have nicknames of the sort we’re looking for, related to the number four?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EB writes: My husband is a third, and if we have a baby boy, we will name him as a fourth, IV. My question is: What are some nicknames that we can call him having to do with the number four? For instance, a third might be called Trey, and a fifth might be called […]<\/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-7235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1SH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7235","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=7235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}