What’s in a name: Shiloh

Silence Dogood here. Before I ever saw her, I knew our puppy would be Shiloh, just as when I saw the Pioneer German Shepherds website, I knew she would be there, and when I spoke to co-owner Gennie about their current pups, I knew which one she’d be, even though I knew another couple was coming to pick out a pup before we could clear our schedules to make the long trip down. Each time, I just had a feeling. Call me funny that way.

Of course, our friend Ben was another story. He wanted another golden retriever like our dear Molly. He didn’t have a clue why we’d want to call a dog Shiloh. “How about Antietam or Bull Run?” he joked. “Or what about naming her for a Civil War general? Beauregard? Ulysses? Tecumseh? Stonewall?” Grrrrr. Yes, Shiloh was a famous Civil War battle, in which both North and South distinguished and disgraced themselves. But it wasn’t the battle per se I was thinking of when the name came to me. 

The town of Shiloh is located in Tennessee, our friend Ben’s and my home state, which certainly seemed appropriate. But I think what brought it to mind was Judy Collins’s haunting rendition of “In the Hills of Shiloh,” which I often sing when I’m out walking alone. (I’d assumed it was a traditional folksong, and was astounded to discover when doing a bit of background for this post that it was actually written by the children’s book author Shel Silverstein.)

Mind you, I did have a few reservations. I was steeling myself to be given endless grief by our friends: “I can’t believe you named your dog for Brangelina’s daughter!” But I grossly overestimated family and friends’ contact with pop culture. Maybe none of them had even heard of Brad and Angelina, much less little Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. Instead, what I did hear took me completely by surprise: “Did you name her after the Neil Diamond song?” Oops. Neil Diamond did write a touching song about his imaginary childhood friend Shiloh, but yikes, I’d completely forgotten it when I chose the name. It was the Judy Collins song I remembered.

Suffice it to say that Ben also fell in love with little Shiloh at first sight, and, though she’s acquired a number of nicknames in the course of our first two weeks with her (including The Beast of the East, The Mad Cow of the Serengeti—she bellowed rather than cried that first night in her crate—and The Little Fruit Bat), he’s calling her Shiloh pretty regularly now. Whew. I was hoping her name would simply become a given and lose any associations not directly connected with her.

Then I got an e-mail from my dear friend Huma. “Loved the photos of Shiloh. And the name has really interesting meanings.” Uh, meanings? You mean Shiloh means something beyond a Tennessee town, a battle, a couple of songs and a celebrity child?

You can bet I headed to my old friend Google PDQ to see what Huma was talking about. And what I found was mind-boggling. Too bad I don’t know my Old Testament as well as I do the New, or I’d have known that Shiloh was a town in ancient Israel in the Old Testament as well as a Bibilical name for the Messiah. The translation is usually “His gift,” though I also found it as “Gift from God.” How completely appropriate for the puppy who came to heal our hearts after the terrible loss of our beloved Molly. A gift from God indeed.

Other meanings I found included “charmer” (that’s certainly true!), “tranquil” (we can only hope, some day), and “pacificator” (one who brings peace). The town Shiloh was described as “a gathering place and sanctuary,” “place of rest.” In the town context, the name was defined as meaning Tranquility Town, Fair Haven, or Pleasantville. (A dreadful irony in light of the Civil War battle, in which more soldiers, Northern and Southern alike, were killed than in all the previous American wars combined.)

As OFB and I run ourselves ragged keeping tabs on Shiloh so we can praise her for doing something right and try to make sure she doesn’t do too much that’s wrong, thoughts of her and tranquility seem far apart. But she is certainly a gift from God, a gathering place to bring people together as they fuss over her, a sanctuary where our love can root and grow and our broken hearts find peace. We can rest in our love for her, our little gift from God. His gift: our Shiloh. Amen.

           ‘Til next time,

                        Silence