First, the funny:

I can’t remember if I already posted this? But it made me laugh the first time I read it, and it made me laugh again today: The Catholic Answers Guide to Naming Your Baby. My favorite parts: “2. Curb the impulse to saddle your newborn with the most obscure saints’ name you can find … True, St. Artaxes is a wonderful example of an early witness for the Faith; yeah, Quadragesimus  was a shepherd who raised a guy from the dead; but the momentary satisfaction of re-introducing these names to the world by attaching them to your offspring is not worth the grief Artaxes will feel going through life with people thinking he was named after a minor deity from Scientology, or that you will suffer every time you have to spell out young Quaddy’s full name when you sign him up for soccer” and “3. Go easy on the middle names. A common tic of Catholic families that I have noticed (and have demonstrated myself) is to introduce or refer to their children by all their names. Instead of, “This is my oldest, Bill, his sister Sarah, and little Henry here just turned one,” we get, “Here’s Joan Clare Marie, her brother John Paul Aquinas de Sales, and I believe you’ve already met Michael Augustine Loyola Chesterton. We call him ‘Kolbe.’””

Next, the informative:

I have this same info on my “About this blog” page, but I thought this was a worthwhile re-articulating of the rules for Catholic baby naming: Do Catholic Children Have to be Given Saints’ Names? I liked the last sentence the best: “Perhaps if we all raise our children as committed Catholics, names like “Ashley” and “Jennifer,” “Curtis” and “Todd” may some day in the future indeed be the names of saints.”