The weight of responsibility

I’ve been furiously searching for a name for my soon-to-be nephew. My older brother called me the other day and asked for help. I love looking at name origins in general (goes along with my interest in etymology as well as my interest in cultural self-identity), so it’s not a task I am not excited about — I am!

But man! It’s hard. I have two requirements from the big bro:

• It must be unique, but not so unusual or wacky that it’ll be a constant source of teasing for the kid.
• It must sound “strong”.

I’ve already had a list rejected outright, except one name, which made the cut. In addition, the ladies of the family (the mom-to-be, my sister, my mom) all are interested in a name with a biblical link of some sort. My brother is like, “Eh,” about the idea, but he’s not against it.

So I’ve been trying to do modern variations on some of the lesser known biblical names, but it’s really hard. I’ve been using the following to websites as my primary resources in research:

• Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager (associated blog here)
• Nymbler (this is also associated with the same person as the above websites)

I have come to the amateurish conclusion that the letters p, t, k, m, n, and x (when not at the beginning) are “strong-sounding” letters and that the letters h, l, j, r, b, and s are not, where “strong-sounding” is extremely subjective.

And no, I’m not thinking of your name and judging you or anything like that. 🙂 I’m sure whatever you think I am thinking of your name, I have never thought it.