Block-oriented models are often used to model nonlinear systems. These models consist of linear dynamic (L) and nonlinear static (N) sub-blocks. This paper addresses the generation of initial estimates for a Wiener-Hammerstein model (LNL cascade). While it is easy to measure the product of the two linear blocks using a Gaussian excitation and linear identification methods, it is difficult to split the global dynamics over the individual blocks. This paper first proposes a well-designed multisine excitation with pairwise coupled random phases. Next, a modified best linear approximation is estimated on a shifted frequency grid. It is shown that this procedure creates a shift of the input dynamics with a known frequency offset, while the output dynamics do not shift. The resulting transfer function, which has complex coefficients due to the frequency shift, is estimated with a modified frequency domain estimation method. The identified poles and zeros can be assigned to either the input or output dynamics. Once this is done, it is shown in the literature that the remaining initialization problem can be solved much easier than the original one. The method is illustrated on experimental data obtained from the Wiener-Hammerstein benchmark system. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.