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It's my brother-in-law's name. He goes by Bernie. Maybe I'm saying something I shouldn't, but it's the truth: My sister has never liked her husband's name because she thinks it sounds Jewish. When she had first met her husband but my father had not yet, and my father heard his name was Bernie, he said, "Bernie? Sounds like some Jewish guy from Brooklyn." (Did my father harbor some anti-Semitic feelings? Yes, he did.)

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Actually, Bernie is of French Canadian parentage and is Catholic. At any rate, my sister didn't dislike Bernard enough to refrain from giving it as a middle name to their second son. It is his middle name.

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So what do I think of it, you ask? I think it sounds like a Jewish guy from Brooklyn. LOL I kid. But it does sound old to me, and heavy, and I don't care for Bernie, and the reason I don't has nothing to do with Judaism. It just sounds goofy to me. Although my brother-in-law is not at all goofy or goofy-looking, he hasn't been able to shake that image.