Name of the Week: Shepherd
December 24 — Christmas Eve
This week’s Name of the Week was nominated by @kinoblush!
If you would like to nominate a name yourself, you can head over to the name of the day thread on our forums.
Shepherd
When it comes to Christmas names for babies, there are of course the classics. Gabriel and Joseph, Noel and Nicholas may come to mind.
But there is an expanding array of modern Christmas names as parents’ perceptions of what a name can be are quickly changing. These include word names, nature names, and modern virtue names with Christmas symbolism, and Shepherd is one of our favorites.
In the nativity story of Christmas, a group of shepherds are the first witnesses to baby Jesus’s birth, having traveled to Bethlehem after the angel Gabriel spoke to them and delivered the good news.
In Christianity, shepherds represent spiritual leaders including Jesus himself, who guide, protect, and care for God’s people (aka the sheep).
The occupational name Shepherd is climbing quickly, having entered the US Top 1000 in 2016 and now at #493. The spellings Shepard, Shephard, and Sheppard cross further into surname territory if Shepherd feels a bit too wordy for your liking.
Other creative Christmas names for boys include Robin, Lux, Cedar, Drummer, and Yule.