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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.

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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).

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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.

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Technically you could probably torture Ned out of it (beNEDict), but why?

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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 *):

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Benedict Alexander / Alexander Benedict
Benedict Ford
Benedict Forrest
Benedict James / James Benedict
Benedict Lee
Benedict Octavius
Benedict Quinn / Quinn Benedict
Benedict Rex * / Rex Benedict
Benedict Ridge
Benedict Sawyer / Sawyer Benedict
Benedict Scott * / Scott Benedict
Benedict Shane / Shane Benedict *
Benedict Wade / Wade Benedict
Benedict Whittaker / Whittaker Benedict
Benedict York

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Dexter Benedict
Dylan Benedict
Elias Benedict
Gregory Benedict
Greyson Benedict
Heath Benedict
Ian Benedict
Jarrett Benedict
Jedidiah Benedict * (like I said, my #1 / #2)
John Benedict * (John for my dad)
Kurt Benedict
Luke Benedict
Rhett Benedict * (so Southern!)

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ETA Benedict York, of which I was reminded by Sabrina Fair :-)

This message was edited 10/18/2007, 6:19 AM