I went to my oldest’s school Mass yesterday, and the priest started his homily by suggesting that having to listen to all the names of Jesus’ ancestors, as listed in the reading for yesterday’s Feast of the Birth of Our Lady, was not anyone’s favorite thing to do.

Clearly this blog is not the place for him. 😛

Of course I had hung on every word of that reading, loving the listing of names, and the priest went on to give a pretty amazing homily about the significance of the fact that Jesus’ ancestors were a mix of, as he put it, “saints and scoundrels,” which Matthew likely felt important to include to show that there’s hope for all of us.

It made me think, too, of how many of us love to look through our own family trees for names that we might like to consider for our own children — “it’s a family name” makes any name okay, no matter how popular/unpopular/weird/unusual/difficult to say or spell, etc. So it’s kind of cool to think of doing the same with Jesus’ family names — a nod to Him in the naming of your baby.

These are the names as listed in that reading:

Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
Judah
Perez (whose mother was Tamar)
Hezron
Ram
Amminadab
Nahshon
Salmon
Boaz (whose mother was Rahab)
Obed (whose mother was Ruth)
Jesse the father of David the king.

David
Solomon
Rehoboam
Abijah
Asaph
Jehoshaphat
Joram
Uzziah
Jotham
Ahaz
Hezekiah
Manasseh
Amos
Josiah

Jechoniah
Shealtiel
Zerubbabel
Abiud
Eliakim
Azor
Zadok
Achim
Eliud
Eleazar
Matthan
Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.

There are definitely some cool possibilities in there for boys:

Abraham
Isaac
Jacob (TWO of Jesus’ ancestors, how great for all the Jakes!)
Judah
Ram
Boaz (love love love love! I think it’s juuuust a little too far for us, but only just — such a cool name)
Obed
Jesse
David
Solomon
Joram
Jotham
Amos
Josiah
Achim
Eleazar
Matthan (I’m digging this one — kind of like Matthew/Matthias, but different)
Joseph

And a couple girl names too:

Tamar
Ruth
Mary

Incidentally, since we know Mary leads us to Jesus, it’s kind of cool to think that naming a little girl Mary in light of this reading is really a nod to Jesus name-wise. I never thought of it that way before. ❤

What names would you consider from this list? Would you ever consider a name like Uzziah or Zerubbabel? What do you think of the idea of using one of the ancestors’ names as an honor name for Jesus?