What themes/trends/styles have you seen big families use in the naming of their kiddos? Which have you used yourselves?
Month: March 2015
Check out these names
Arwen and her husband’ve got it going on! Check out their kids’ names: Camilla, Blaise, Linus, and Ambrose. So swoony!
A quick search of her blog shows she’s blogged about names a bunch. Well. I know where I’ll be spending my time next time I want to read some juicy name posts. 😉
Mary the Dawn
My mom and I were talking more about Anastasia and Salome, and Jesus’ Birth in general, and the conversation moved onto the account of the Nativity in Ven. Mary of Agreda’s Mystical City of God that reader Irish Nannie referenced, and Mom read the passage to me and particularly wanted me to take note of the fact that Mary is referred to as “the resplendent Aurora Mary” to Jesus the Sun:
The “most poor and insignificant hut or cave, to which most holy Mary and Joseph betook themselves … was the first temple of light (Malachi 4, 2, Psalm III, 4) and … the house of the true Sun of justice, which was to arise for the upright of heart from the resplendent Aurora Mary, turning the night of sin into the daylight of grace.” (no. 468)
How beautiful is that? I knew aurora was Latin for dawn, and I knew that Mary has been referred to as the Dawn, but I’d never seen Aurora and Mary together like that. Just lovely.
Beautiful list of symbols associated with Mary
A wonderful resource! Mary’s Symbols
The new-to-me story of Anastasia and Salome
I posted a quote the other day from The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names by EG Withycombe stating that Anastasia “in medieval legend was attached to the Virgin’s midwife.” Which basically blew my mind. I’m not unaware of the Nativity story, you know? And yet I’d never once even considered the idea that Our Lady had a midwife. On the one hand — wasn’t Jesus’ birth miraculous, “without any violation to her physical, external virginity. As the Fathers of the Church explained, as ‘light passes through glass without harming the glass’, so Jesus was born with Mary’s Virginity ‘in tact’, that is with the preservation of her physical virginity“? So, you know, what would a midwife do? But then, as this possibility presented itself, I thought, surely it does make sense that Our Lady would have a midwife, especially if she and/or St. Joseph was/were unaware of how the birth would proceed. And midwives do more than just catch the baby, don’t they? It makes perfect sense that Our Lady would have women attend her, to help her through labor, to wipe her brow, to soothe St. Joseph. If I’m suggesting a scene that doesn’t fit with Church tradition, please tell me!
It seems the apocryphal Gospel of James is the source of the story of Our Lady’s midwife:
“19. And I [St. Joseph] saw a woman coming down from the hill-country, and she said to me: O man, whither are you going? And I said: I am seeking an Hebrew midwife. And she answered and said unto me: Are you of Israel? And I said to her: Yes. And she said: And who is it that is bringing forth in the cave? And I said: A woman betrothed to me. And she said to me: Is she not your wife? And I said to her: It is Mary that was reared in the temple of the Lord, and I obtained her by lot as my wife. And yet she is not my wife, but has conceived of the Holy Spirit.
“And the midwife said to him: Is this true? And Joseph said to her: Come and see. And the midwife went away with him. And they stood in the place of the cave, and behold a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave. And the midwife said: My soul has been magnified this day, because my eyes have seen strange things— because salvation has been brought forth to Israel. And immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the cave, so that the eyes could not bear it. And in a little that light gradually decreased, until the infant appeared, and went and took the breast from His motherMary. And the midwife cried out, and said: This is a great day to me, because I have seen this strange sight …“
That midwife has, according to some (here, here), traditionally been called Anastasia. The reading continues:
“And the midwife went forth out of the cave, and Salome met her. And she said to her: Salome, Salome, I have a strange sight to relate to you: a virgin has brought forth— a thing which her nature admits not of. Then said Salome: As the Lord my God lives, unless I thrust in my finger, and search the parts, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth.
“20. And the midwife went in, and said to Mary: Show yourself; for no small controversy has arisen about you. And Salome put in her finger, and cried out, and said: Woe is me for mine iniquity and mineunbelief, because I have tempted the living God; and, behold, my hand is dropping off as if burned with fire. And she bent her knees before the Lord, saying: O God of my fathers, remember that I am the seed of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; do not make a show of me to the sons of Israel, but restore me to the poor; for You know, O Lord, that in Your name I have performed my services, and that I have received my reward at Your hand. And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by her, saying to her: Salome, Salome, the Lord has heard you. Put your hand to the infant, and carry it, and you will have safety and joy. And Salome went and carried it, saying: I will worship Him, because a great King has been born to Israel. And, behold, Salome was immediately cured, and she went forth out of the cave justified. And behold a voice saying: Salome, Salome, tell not the strange things you have seen, until the child has come into Jerusalem.“
Straightforward enough, though the Gospel of James has always been a mystery to me — are we to consider it to have some authority or not? Fortunately, I came across a note about that, when I was looking up Sts. Anne and Joachim, as I thought they too had been part of the same writing:
“Tradition nevertheless, grounded on very old testimonies, very early hailed Saints Joachim and Anne as the father and mother of the Mother of God. True, this tradition seems to rest ultimately on the so-called “Gospel of James”, the “Gospel of the Nativity of the Blessed Mary”, and the Pseudo-Matthew, or “Book of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the Childhood of the Saviour”; and this origin is likely to rouse well-founded suspicions. It should be borne in mind, however, that the apocryphal character of these writings, that is to say, their rejection from the canon, and their ungenuineness do not imply that no heed whatever should be taken of some of their assertions; side by side, indeed, with unwarranted and legendary facts, they contain some historical data borrowed from reliable traditions or documents; and difficult though it is to distinguish in them the wheat from the tares, it would be unwise and uncritical indiscriminately to reject the whole.“
I could be wrong, but it seems then that there’s nothing wrong with considering the story of Anastasia and Salome. Even if the details aren’t quite true, they might be, and they proclaim the miraculous birth of Jesus.
Moving on from that, there seems to be some confusion as to who had the withered hand upon examining Mary’s virginity — the passage above says it was Salome; the abstract for this article notes that, “In an early fifteenth-century French book of hours (Getty MS 57), St Anastasia, born without hands, kneels in worshipful adoration with Mary and Joseph before the newborn Christ Child. According to apocrypha, Anastasia believed in the miraculous divine birth, and when she held the Christ Child in her arms, God rewarded her faith by sending an angel bringing new, beautiful hands … This article examines the iconography of the Getty Nativity and observes that the Anastasia legend parallels the apocryphal narrative of the midwife Salome. ”
So a little confusion there, furthered by St. Anastasia’s feast day being the same as Christmas; there’s also some speculation that the midwife Salome may be the same who is known as St. Mary Salome (and if so, what a great connection that she was one of the first to see the newborn Savior, and was also there at His Resurrection).
Had any of you known any of this? Do any of you have further insight into or knowledge about this story and these women? Does this story make the names Anastasia and Salome more or less appealing?
Parish directory
I was looking through an old parish directory recently and enjoyed these sib sets (alt characters used for privacy):
R0salie, T3ssy, Soph!a, and El!za
Br!an, S3an, Cas3y (g),* Col!n, and Mara
M0lly, Grady, and Cla!re
Gr!ffin, T3ss, and N3ll
B3n, Sara, and N0ra
Just!n, Isab3lle, and Al3ssandra
Ke3gan (b),* Qu!nn (b),* and Ol!via (I’m always interested to see how families handle it when they use androgynous-ish names* — generally it seems only one gender gets the unisex names while the other gets an unquestionably masculine or feminine name)
Have you heard of any well named sib sets you’d like to share?
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*Just to clarify — I’m not making a judgment about the names Ke3gan, Qu!nn, and Cas3y by calling them “androgynous-ish” — just pointing out that they’re currently used for both boys and girls. I say “ish” because I personally still consider Ke3gan a boy’s name, though I know a girl with it, so I wouldn’t call it androgynous, but others might. The other two names I’ve heard equally for boys and girls, and I might even say they skew feminine in my experience.
Celebrity guest: Rachel Balducci (Testosterhome)
There were a few bloggers who really helped me through my early motherhood — mamas who were more experienced at living a faith-filled motherhood than I was, and every day I eagerly awaited my computer time so I could catch up with my “friends.” I’m so excited to spotlight one of them today!
Rachel Balducci, of the brilliantly named Testosterhome, showed me what an all-boy house looked like — she’d had her first four boys before I realized I’d have so many boys, and I waited breathlessly with the rest of the blogosphere when she was giving birth to her fifth — would it be another boy?? It was! Then my whole summer was overshadowed with sadness at the suffering of her #5 boy, Henry, and the stress the whole family was under when he broke his leg when he was younger than two, I think, and had to wear a spica cast for what seemed like for.EV.er. And then a few years later we all waited breathlessly again as Rachel was having her sixth baby, and when her last little one was a girl (a girl!) I could hear all of the Catholic internets sighing with surprise and joy and wonder.
So Rachel: Mama of five big-and-little boys and one little girl, long-time blogger, author of How Do You Tuck In a Superhero? And other delightful mysteries of raising boys (also available under its new title, Raising Boys is a Full Contact Sport), newspaper columnist, speaker, and co-host of The Gist, a talk show for women at CatholicTV.
She knows what’s up.
She’s also done an amazing job naming her kiddos, and graciously agreed to give us a glimpse into her and her hubby’s naming thought process! Without further ado:
(1) Well for starters, our first born was going to be August. That was the name we had picked out. I liked the idea of Augustine Asher (both family names) but we live in Augusta and it sounded too much like “Augusta National”! And then our son was born and he had copper hair and looked nothing like what I thought our baby would look like. I really have to see my baby to make sure the name fits. And I sent [her husband] Paul down to the nurses station to borrow the name book. We found Ethan, which we’d discussed earlier. Ethan. We liked the name and loved the meaning. His first name is Paul, like his dad and grandfather and Ethan means “firm” or “enduring.” Also it was unique without being overly so!
(2) Twenty-one months later we gave birth to another boy. And once again I thought about using August (the actual family name). But this son had bright red hair and looked even less like what I imagined. This time I had brought my own baby name book and we looked at every name. And we loved the name Elliott. It’s a modern form of Elijah and means “Jehovah is God.” The big issue with his name was spelling and we labored over how to spell it. We finally settled on two L’s and two T’s, but people almost NEVER spell it the right way. One T is all he usually gets. Oh well, I like this version! His middle name is Stephen, after my dad.
(3) Twenty-one months later and another boy. This time I mostly had the name already picked. I had given up on using August and we went with two family names: Charles Asher. Charles is my grandfather and also a dear uncle of mine and Asher is Paul’s grandmother’s maiden name.
(4) TWENTY ONE MONTHS LATER and ANOTHER BOY. I am not kidding. So this time I used August. Why not. I had run out of all the other names on my list. We used August and then Becket as the middle name because I love Thomas Becket.
(5) We took a five year break from having boy babies and then, when Augie was five and a half we had another boy. We named him Henry Ephrem. Henry is Paul’s great grandfather and Ephrem is my great-grandfather (and my brother’s middle name). My only thoughts on names is really consider the meaning. Henry means “ruler of the house” and the name really works for him. Lawdy. He’s amazing, he’s a tornado.
(6) And then, when we thought we were done (my pregnancy with Henry was really rough, we thought it wouldn’t be prudent to have another baby) we were surprised. And we didn’t find out what we were having…but planned on another boy. And I could not think of any other names for us…except Oliver which unfortunately is my brother’s son so that would have been awkward to use. So…Anyway, then Isabel was born! And that was always on my girls name list (which was never touched) and her middle name is Anne-marie, which is from each of the grandmothers. It’s a lot of name but I had to cram a lot into this one girl!
Aren’t those great names?? I just love the story behind each one — the care, the thought. I love all the family connections. I love how substantial each name combination is. Thank you to Rachel for a great start to the week!! ❤
Did you know this about Anastasia?
I don’t even want to reference the other Anastasia that’s been flooding the media, so I won’t (and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, blessed are you), but I will say that this gorgeous name has a tiny bit of a taint for me at the moment. But then I read this today, and while I’ll have to do some digging to find out more (and I don’t have time right now, as a certain 11 month old wants breakfast), I’ll just leave you with it, and if you know more, please share!
“Anastasius, common in the Greek Church, was seldom used in the West, but Anastasia, the name of a 4th-C martyr mentioned in the Canon of the Mass, became a general favorite, and in medieval legend was attached to the Virgin’s midwife.”
~ The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, EG Withycombe (21)
Quick-witted ten-year-old
I’ve had two recent posts about my oldest, and here’s yet another, because it made me laugh and it has to do with names:
That same night that he said Zachary was a “weird” name, I was working on a spreadsheet of ideas for a mom who recently emailed me hoping for suggestions for her baby-on-the-way. My son actually expressed some interest, so I was telling him her other kids’ names, and what kind of names she was looking for. He grabbed my Baby Name Wizard book and started looking through it, looking up names, and offering suggestions. I was impressed! Several were ones I’d already written down as possible suggestions.
That seemed to annoy him a little though, that he wasn’t coming up with anything I hadn’t already thought of. “Oh,” I teased him, “You have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat me at baby names!”
“Don’t worry Mom,” he said. “That’s not my dream.”
Mystery solved
Yesterday I told you that my son thinks Zachary and Daniel are “weird” names, and I was determined to discover what names he would classify as normal. My guesses were either super trendy or super crazy-saintly.
I was wrong on both counts: He said he would consider “normal” names to be Jack, Matthew, John, Mark, and Steve — a mix of family members and boys in his class at school. (Notice: no girl names. That’s what happens when there are seven males in a house and only one female, who’s *just* Mom.)
Sancta Nomina 