Did you keep your name choice secret til birth?

You sound quite mad. Are you usually this melodramatic? Your baby’s name is not a magic, secret mantra that is ‘tainted’ by being spoken aloud before his birth. And surely, given that your DH immediately backtracked and told his friends to forget he’d said the name, they would have been unreasonable and a bit rude to start exclaiming ‘Bernard! What a gorgeous name! So underused!’

Did you also think whether the baby was a girl or a boy was some big secret you got to ‘announce’?

Gently, OP, your baby’s name, like his birth weight, merit a passing ‘That’s nice’ from pretty much everyone else. Name responses probably run a very small gamut from ‘That’s nice’ to ‘I went to school with a boy who had nits called Bernard’ to ‘My ex had a Pomeranian called Bernard’ to ‘Ugh’ or ‘You should have called him after Great-Uncle Nigel’.

Our experience was that we thought DC would be a boy. I had an amniocentesis. The results call came through on the office landline in the middle of the office. They asked if I wanted to know the gender, I said yes and they asked whether I thought it was a boy or a girl. So I said boy, the whole office picked up on this and knew before DH 🤣

After that I couldn’t see any point in keeping the name secret

We told people our shortlist of names but in reality had picked one of the names.

bizarrely my mum said you can’t name a boy that name, however it was the name we had chosen and we loved it . We named our son that name. Years later my mum said she can’t imagine any other name suiting him.

WE didn't even know the name until birth. We didn't know the sex, so had a small shortlist for both sexes.

I don't understand the NEED some people have to have a name locked in before baby is born.

Our first name list is strictly private, but we told people our middle name options mostly as the middle names are family names. 30 weeks with number 2, I’ve given middle names but first names are off limit. I often reply with they are the same type of name as number 1. But we also keep them guessing as we the gender is a surprise.

For me, the reason I don't tell so many people is more about keeping unsolicited opinions at bay, not about it being less special or not being able to do some grand announcement.

I understand your feelings! But these things happen.
I think you should still keep the name.
About the friends not giving compliments, I agree with your thinking that your friends probably just tried to follow your wishes, since your husband said "pretend I didn't say that" and you said that your are trying out names.

Keep the name! It's a good name, that you both like.
The people you happened to tell are your friends! The name is not tainted because they have heard your husband say it once. Just don't say it to anyone else. It will be fine. Keep the name.

Slightly different, but my husband shared our thoughts on/shortlist of names to other family members when we were expecting our first. I was quite cross as I regarded it as private information! He didn’t do it again!

I would say ultimately try not to let it bother you. If you love the name, I wouldn’t change it for this. I think what you said was reasonable that you were just trying out the name, even if you are in fact fairly sure, it’s not set in stone yet.