Sisters and Swistle

sanctanomina Namespotting, ,

I was all 😍😍😍 last night when I saw the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist’s post on Facebook:

“This evening our postulants received the Holy Habit of St. Dominic — and now we have 9 beautiful new novices!!!“

And each one of those novices took a new name, which is just like Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter/St. Paddy’s Day/my birthday rolled into one!! 😁 Check out these gorgeous combos:

Sr. Stephanie — Sr. Karol Joseph
Sr. Patricia — Sr. Simeon Marie
Sr. Karla — Sr. Johanna Christi
Sr. AnnElise — Sr. Mary Avila
Sr. Rachel — Sr. Paul Marie
Sr. Savanna — Sr. Teresa Marie
Sr. Kelsey — Sr. Maria Cabrini
Sr. Abigail — Sr. Mary Vianney
Sr. Caroline — Sr. Basil Marie

But wait! There’s more! Sr. Helena Burns, fsp, the Daughters of St. Paul self-described “media nun” (with the amazingly named “Theology of the Body & media literacy” blog Hell Burns 😂) posted on Instagram yesterday a picture of her door’s name tag with her Secret Ninja Nun Name 😂 — be sure to check it out, it’s gooorrgeous!!

 

Also, I finally got through the 71 pages of Swistle birth announcements (going back to 2008!) and had a few more I wanted to share with you (I posted about the first batch here):

Hornstein Twins (twin posts are fun anyway, but I particularly loved that in this one, one of the girls was named Rosabel Olivia and called “Roo” for her initials [her last name begins with O] — SO CUTE!)

Then there’s this one: Baby Naming Issue: Felony Fever Vice. Yes, those three words there were the proposed name  (first + two middles) of the baby girl in question. Swistle offered some great suggestions and the final result was vastly better (at least the first two names … they just couldn’t let go of that third). I love me some bold naming, truly, but I’m sure you’ll agree this veered a little too mug shot/convict/prison. I was telling my husband about it and he was just so horrified — as I was I! Promise! — but I could also see the appeal: how similar is Felony to Melanie and Stephanie? Like a traditional name with an edgy twist! And Fever and Vice are both in keeping with the currently popular sounds of names like Everly, Evie, Violet, Vivian, Evangeline, Genevieve. I can see how the parents got there. But still — mug shot/convict/prison.

Finally, lookiee who I found here! Baby Boy or Girl MOE-zhur! It’s a consultation post for Arwen’s second baby — so fun that we were part of her current state of affairs with the consultation I did for her fifth baby and his birth announcement. 😀 I love seeing how parents name tastes change/don’t change as their family grows.

11 thoughts on “Sisters and Swistle”

  1. My family did foster care for babies for almost 20 years and oh man the names I could share. I won’t, because they are so very… unique, but oh my…oh my oh my oh my. We would all have to get together and decide in what alias we would call them in public. Felony Fever Vice indeed.

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  2. Isn’t it crazy to think about the three year old sister in the twins post being 11 and the twin being 8?? Idk why thinking about that weirds me out as much as it does, lol. I love the names they ended up choosing 😀

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  4. Ok, so, I totally understand the significance of religious taking on new names, etc. But on the other hand, it totally bothers me as a name-crazy mama. Their birth names were probably selected with such love and care, and often if their parents were observant Catholics, with a real thought to the holiness of the names, too. On the other hand, fewer lay people are canonized than religious (though this is shifting just a bit), and this to me has always seemed to limit the ability for new names to become saints’ names. I know it’s silly of me, but this really stresses me out!

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    • Interesting! Yes, I can see how it would be stressful … though I consider the saints’ birth names to be just as legit an honor as the religious names they might have taken, so it’s kind of like a twofer, you know?

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      • But only if you can find out their birth names, which seems fairly unusual…and it seems like a lot of people, at least historically, wouldn’t consider it to be legit!

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      • That’s interesting! I never have! The only ones I know are St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), only because she’s more commonly known by her birth name, St. Catherine Labouré (Zoë Labouré), which I only know because you mentioned it here, and St. Maximilian Kolbe (Raymund Kolbe), because I just read about it when reading about him in general. But I don’t know anyone else who has a devotion to any saints with a special attention to their birth names! I don’t think it’s very common. Which still makes me sad, even though I fully understand and acknowledge the importance of taking on a new name. I just rebel against it because I know how important naming is for so many Catholic parents! Like all the parents here who really agonize over choosing just the right name!

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      • I totally get it!!

        (Another common one everyone knows is John Paul (Karol), and we’ve talked too about Bl. Archangela Girlani (Eleanor). Ignatius of Loyola was Inigo, Francis of Assisi was John [Giovanni], and in today’s post we learned that Maewyn was St. Patrick’s birth name! What! It adds a whole other layer of names, which is so fun — so many options!)

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