Benedict has gone back and forth with
Jedidiah for my #1 / #2 favorite name for quite a while now, long before
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger ascended to the papacy.
Benedict Arnold has never entered into it for me. However, we do have to admit a high degree of probability that it will be fairly strongly linked to the one, and to a lesser degree the other. That doesn't bother me in the least (I'm Catholic, after all). You have to decide if it bothers you.
I first came to
Benedict because I love the nn
Ben but do
not love
Benjamin (I have the same issue loving
Nick and disliking
Nicholas - and haven't found a similar way around that one yet). But
Benedict has continued to grow on me in its own right. These days I still love the nn
Ben, but have also come to love the nn Bick (which was Rock
Hudson's character's nn in the movie
Giant - his real name was
Jordan Benedict Jr).
Dick would also work, but I'm not goin there. Even if it didn't
already bite for other reasons, Darth Cheney has utterly ruined any tiny charm that nn may ever have had.
Technically you could probably torture
Ned out of it (beNEDict), but why?
I have a ton of
Benedict combos, both as fn and mn. I think it matches up equally well with monosyllabic or polysyllabic names, though polysyllabics sound better as fn's, imo. A sampling (my extreme faves have *):
Benedict Alexander /
Alexander BenedictBenedict FordBenedict ForrestBenedict James /
James BenedictBenedict LeeBenedict OctaviusBenedict Quinn /
Quinn BenedictBenedict Rex * /
Rex BenedictBenedict Ridge
Benedict Sawyer /
Sawyer BenedictBenedict Scott * /
Scott BenedictBenedict Shane /
Shane Benedict *Benedict Wade /
Wade BenedictBenedict Whittaker / Whittaker
BenedictBenedict York
Dexter BenedictDylan BenedictElias BenedictGregory BenedictGreyson BenedictHeath BenedictIan BenedictJarrett BenedictJedidiah Benedict * (like I said, my #1 / #2)
John Benedict * (
John for my dad)
Kurt BenedictLuke BenedictRhett Benedict * (so Southern!)
ETA
Benedict York, of which I was reminded by
Sabrina Fair :-)
This message was edited 10/18/2007, 6:19 AM