Sherman

Originates as an English occupational surname for a shearer of woolen cloth, derived from the Old English for shears and man. It entered American first-name rotation in the late nineteenth century, propelled partly by military and political surname inheritance. By the middle of the twentieth century, it had shed its martial connotations to settle into municipal rosters and neighborhood hardware stores.

Sherman reads like an instruction manual printed on heavy cardstock. It peaked in 1951, giving the name a dense concentration among older men who know how to service a carburetor. It suggests someone who keeps a labelled tin of brass fasteners in the basement workshop. Today, it appears on birth certificates fewer than twenty times a year.