Happy feast of St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria! I hope my American readers had a good 4th of July! Please pray for America! 🗽🙏

Be sure to note that as of July 2 (as I wrote in the post that day), I’m suspending consultations indefinitely due to various things going on in my life (all good!). I will continue to post consultations I’ve already done for those families who want them, and I have some birth announcements and other things to post this summer as well; I also always keep you all in my prayers! 🩷🩷🩷

Today’s consultation is for Jessica and her husband, who are expecting their fourth baby — a girl! Little Miss joins big siblings:

Gianna Catherine (“Gianna is my confirmation saint [I converted in college] and also a patron of our family. I knew after learning her story that I would want to name a daughter after her, so once we found out that our first was a girl, that was that! My husband and I met through pro-life work during our college years, and after we married, I pursued a degree in Catholic Bioethics, and Gianna’s patronage covers the whole gamut of issues important to us [the department at the university where I earned my degree was officially christened The St. Gianna School of Health Sciences soon after I graduated]. The middle name Catherine was chosen both for how well it flows with Gianna and also because we wanted to honor St. Catherine of Sienna, another strong Catholic woman who served the Church in an entirely different way than St. Gianna. We mostly call her Gianna or some other non-name-related nicknames, but a lot of relatives call her Gigi or G [we do as well, but not as frequently]“). 

Dominic Ivan (“To be perfectly honest, the main reason we chose Dominic was that it was one of the only boy names we both liked. I used to joke that we would struggle to name any future boys, but the joke is on me now because we’re having a girl and struggling anyways. But we both liked the name Dominic, and a bonus was the connection to St. Dominic and the Order of Preachers, whose charisms we appreciate. It also paired well with Gianna’s more Italian-style name, and is a fairly common name in Croatia, where my father’s family is from. Ivan is my husband’s grandfather’s name – once I suggested Ivan as a middle name, my husband really liked the idea and that also helped push Dominic to the top. We had been considering some other names like Thomas or Damien, but felt that Dominic Ivan flowed better than the alternative options. We also mostly use his full name, but occasionally shorten it to Dommy (Or Doodle, but I doubt he wants that nickname to follow him into adulthood] 😂”)

+Stella Mercy (“We named our miscarried baby Stella Mercy.  We lost her right around the start of Advent, so a star-related name seemed appropriate, and I have always loved the name Mercy.  My husband didn’t like the idea of a unisex name [even though we lost her too early to know the sex] but I like to think that her name could also be Stella Clement if, in fact, she was a boy. The meaning would be the same“)

Absolutely fantastic names!! And two consultations for families with a little Dominic in one week!!😍

Jessica writes,

“So this little rainbow baby will be our third here on earth, but our fourth to name. I have always been into baby names, and as a kid I used to read baby name books and make long lists of names – for book characters but also for future children. So now that I’m actually in the baby-naming phase of life, I feel a lot of pressure to pick the perfect names! We both prefer names with strong meaning, or family names. I am also very picky about the cadence of a name, and how well the whole name flows together, as well as just the first/last combo (since that’s what they’ll most often be called).  Our last name is very short and choppy. Most single-syllable names are out because they don’t sound good, and any name that ends with D also doesn’t work (I like Marigold and Adelaide but they’re just too clunky with [last name].)

My husband and I have a decent amount of baby name style overlap, although I am definitely more accepting of unusual or less common names.  I tend to throw out a bunch of name ideas and he whittles down our list by vetoing the ones he doesn’t like (like Aveline, Linnea, or Calliope).  Our last name is very simple (and boring! – I say that with full agreement of my husband too 😅) so I wouldn’t mind going completely ‘out-there’ with names but my husband is skeptical of names he doesn’t hear super often.”

Sounds familiar! 😅

Names they’re considering include: 

• Clara (“this was our top choice for a while but my husband says it’s not clicking as well as he thought it would; it’s a family name on my side and I also really love the connection to St. Clare [who was born Chiara, which is the Italian form of Clara]“)

• Lydia (“this was our girl name pick when pregnant with Dominic. It’s still one of Hubs’ favorites but I’m not as sure about it anymore, but we love the biblical Lydia and her association with the early Church and hospitality“)

• Maisie (“we would use it as a nickname, probably with Mary Therese or Margaret as the full name. Hubs prefers it as a nn for Margaret, but his mom and my grandmother are both Mary, so it feels like it would be a missed opportunity to pick Maisie but not honor the multiple Marys in our lives“)

• Josephine (“my husband really likes the nickname Josie, I’m worried it’s too sing-songy with our last name. Also this is nitpicky, but my name is Jessica, and our older daughter is Gianna, so it feels like a lot of repletion of the J/G sounds in all the girls“)

• Felicity (“we both like the cadence of the name, and especially the nickname Lissie. The one hang-up we have [and we’re not sure if it’s even a real concern] is that some friends in the area just had a girl in April and named her Felicity. We have no issue with anyone in our circle using the same names as our kids, and we’ve said as much to friends who mentioned liking the names Gianna and Dominic, but I know that not everyone feels the same way about ‘stealing’ baby names and we want to bring it up casually with these friends and see if it would be something that bothered them before we lock anything in“)

Additional names that Jessica likes but her hubby doesn’t:

• Adeline
• Emilia
• Rosalie
• Violet
• Elowen 

Names already used in their family (basically a “no” list) include:

• Julia
• Mikayla
• Emma
• Anna
• Ellie 
• Charlotte
• Allison
• Lilly
• Emily
• Elaine
• Evelyn (nn. Evie with a long E)

Some final considerations:

“Gianna and Dominic both have saint names (and vaguely Italian names) but we didn’t necessarily intend that as a requirement – so I’m a little worried that we might lock ourselves into a theme if this baby also has a saint name (or a name that’s too Italian sounding I guess). My favorite boy name for the future is Tristan, which is not a saint name, so it’s on my mind, and names like Clara, Lydia, and Maisie seem like a good happy medium – biblical or saint associations without being overtly a saint name. We could easily name future children after saints or not, without anyone ending up being the odd one out.  

Baby girl is due in early November, so if there are any late Oct/early Nov feast days that might be relevant, that would be interesting to know! Also we are both very into theology and literature – my husband is a huge LOTR fan (although he still won’t sign off on the name Eowyn 😅). One of the reasons I felt drawn to Maisie early on was the connection to Maisie Ward, a Catholic theologian and writer connected to the Oxford movement in England. I mentioned that my ancestry is mostly Croatian and Italian, but my husband’s ancestry is German and Ukrainian, so we’re open to names more from that region. Also my husband is a big anglophile and probably wishes he lived in England, so we love a good British name too!  I know that’s all over the place, but maybe it can help with some inspiration!“

I absolutely love Jessica’s older kiddos’ names! Gianna Catherine, Dominic Ivan, and Stella Mercy (/Clement) are all so beautiful, meaningful, and full of faith significance! I loved reading all the background behind each one.

I laughed over Jessica’s characterization of their family’s surname as “boring” and I tend to fall in the same mindset she has of balancing that kind of thing out by “going completely ‘out there’ with names,” but I also really like how she articulated her husband’s reservations: “skeptical of names he doesn’t hear super often.” That’s one of the best explanations I’ve heard for why so many husbands (in my experience) are reluctant to consider certain names, and also why so many seem stuck on names that their wives describe as being “names of girls they went to high school with.”

I love their list of ideas, and I’ll start by offering my thoughts on each one, in case they’re helpful:

• Clara: This is a great and less-expected way to nod to St. Clare, a beautiful name! I get, though, that sometimes a name that has been a top contender for a while might start to feel … stale? To one or both parents?

• Lydia: It sounds like what’s happening with Clara for Jessica’s husband is what’s happening with Lydia for Jessica! It’s a great name, and I loved her explanation of what they love about the name including “her association with the early Church and hospitality.” I’ve also always loved that purple would be a Lydia’s own personal color!

• Maisie, Josephine: Okay, I’m putting these two together because I think there might be a solution here that would involve both of these names! Jessica mentioned that her love of Maisie began in part with Maisie Ward; also that her mother-in-law and her grandmother are both Mary; also that Josie LastName sounds too sing-songy to her; also that having another girl’s name start with the J sound seems overmuch. I know Jessica’s husband prefers this as a nickname for Margaret, which I get, since in origin it is a diminutive of Margaret, but I wonder if he — and Jessica — would be open to Mary Josephine nicknamed Maisie, especially when they find out that Maisie Ward’s given name was Mary Josephine?? It seems to bring together/solve all the things Jessica listed! (Except for the Margaret thing, which I am sorry for, but it would allow Jessica’s husband to call their daughter Josie if he wants! Moms and Dads sometimes have different nicknames they use for their kids.)

• Felicity: Oh man, I love Felicity for this family! But I also get Jessica’s reservations about using it without making sure that it’s okay with the other family they know! If their friends give their blessing, I really do love Felicity as Gianna’s and Dominic’s sister. If their friends aren’t okay with them using it, I wouldn’t think it’s totally off the table — maybe just shelved for now. You never know what the future brings — that family might move away, or Jessica and her family might, or a few years’ difference in ages between two Felicitys might diffuse any issue.

I’m glad Jessica included the list of names she likes but her husband doesn’t — I was interested by the number of flower names (Marigold, Linnea, Rosalie, Violet) and tried to keep that in mind while working on this. I also love that Jessica’s favorite boy name is Tristan — funny enough, it’s a style match for Dominic according to the Baby Name Wizard book! (affiliate link) And though it’s not a Saint’s name, I did include Tristan in my book of Marian names (not an affiliate link!). This is what I wrote:

“Though Tristan seems to have originated as a variant of the name Drustan, which is unrelated to Our Lady in any way, the Latin word tristis (“sad”) played a role in its evolution from Drustan to Tristan due to the old and well-known tragic story of Tristan and Isolde. Its sad connotations give the name a great connection to Our Lady of Sorrows.” (230)

Also, I’ve heard before from readers that they don’t want to saddle their children with names that have a tragic connection (whether Our Lady of Sorrows or even the martyrs! [That one surprised me!]), but Theresa wrote a beautiful piece on her choice of Our Lady of Sorrows as her daughter’s patron, in which she wrote:

“This, I think, perfectly illustrates who Our Lady of Sorrows is and a Catholic view of sorrow. It is hope, instead of despair, in the face of tragedy. It is fortitude in the face of upset and chaos. It is trust in the midst of darkness. And it is gratitude in the midst of hardship.”

I love that! So I absolutely love Tristan as a possibility for a future son. I also like Jessica’s thought that Tristan “and names like Clara, Lydia, and Maisie seem like a good happy medium — biblical or saint associations without being overtly a saint name. We could easily name future children after saints or not, without anyone ending up being the odd one out.” In fact, I might suggest characterizing their children’s name style (including Gianna and Dominic) as simply “Catholic,” which removes all pressure to use only Saints’ name and opens up so many other things that can all go together under the style umbrella of “Catholic.”

Okay! On to new ideas! I did my usual research in the Baby Name Wizard, as it lists, for each entry, boy and girl names that are similar in terms of style/feel/popularity — I looked up the names Jessica and her husband have already used and those they like. I loved the extra info about her and her husband’s shared interests in theology and literature (me and mine too!), including LOTR (it was an inspiration behind my first suggestion below!) (also, that’s an affiliate link, and the boxed set, including The Hobbit, is only $20 today!), and her husband’s Anglophilia. There are posts here on the blog that address each of those things that I used in my research, and I want to be sure to list them here in case any of you would like to look through them, too:

• Birth announcement for a baby whose mom introduced me to Maisie Ward and who has a similar aesthetic to this family

• Profile of a family who names with a literary + Catholic sensibility — they’ve already used fantastic names, and there are some additional ideas, too (an update to a post I’d done on them several years earlier, which is referred to in the posts below)

• Several posts I’ve done on Catholic literary names: here, here, here.

• Consultation for a family living in England, the parents of whom are converts and whose dad is a former Anglican Clergyman-turned-Catholic-priest. They had a “preference for three-syllable Old-World catacomb-y names” that would also fit in in England — Dominic was on their list! Woo! There’s also this birth announcement I did for them a couple years later for their next baby, which includes the name they chose for the baby the consultation had been for.

• The mom of a mama I did a consultation for did a post fifteen years ago on the very unusual names her kids have, inspired by Tolkien and Lewis.

Based on all that, here are my new suggestions for Jessica and her hubby:

(1) Elanor

When reading Jessica’s email, I immediately knew I wanted to include Elanor in my suggestions for her! I was initially inspired by Elowen, as Elanor is also a LOTR name, but a more accessible one. Seeing all the flower names that she likes inspired me, too, as in LOTR, not only is Elanor the name of Sam and Rosie’s baby girl, but it’s also the name of a little flower. The fact that it means “sun star” in Sindarin could make it perfect as a little connection to the baby that came before, their Stella, but that’s only if they like that connection — otherwise they can ignore that. I will admit I’m a little hesitant because of Ellie and Elaine on the list of cousins, but it’s so perfect otherwise (in my opinion — they may disagree!) that a way they can work around that is by using Nora as a nickname, which is a common and traditional nickname for Eleanor and has usage in Italian, German, and Ukrainian, making it a nice nod to both Jessica’s and her husband’s heritages, or another more unexpected idea like Lore (a German contracted form of Eleanor) or something made up like Linny or Nori.

(2) Eloise

While Elanor is my favorite El- suggestion for this family, and one that I offer even knowing that Ellie and Elaine might make it problematic, I can’t not include Eloise on this list for the sole reason that it was a huge style match for them according to the BNW! It’s a match for Adelaide, Adeline, Rosalie, and Violet! Similar to Elanor, they’d need to find a non-El- nickname — Lola and Lulu could work. Also, as far as I know, there’s no Saint named Eloise (though there is a Bl. Helwisa, also known as Eloisa and Heloise), and the strongest connection to the faith that I know of is the story of theologian Peter Abelard and his wife Heloise (Eloise is a variant of Heloise) — I don’t know how well known that story is among Catholics or the general population, but I read it years ago and it’s still a dominant thought for me regarding Eloise.

(3) Zelie

St. Gianna is linked with St. Zelie in my mind as two women who served the world and their families through work, and Zelie is distinctly not Italian, so it’s a nice addition to this family’s names from that perspective. An additional inspiration is that many, many people consider Azelie (St. Zelie’s given name) to be French for “azalea” (I just have to add that I’ve never been able to confirm that — according to Google translate, azalée is the French for azalea, but if you do a general search for “is azelie French for azalea” you’ll find lots of sites that say so), which could be a nod to Jessica’s love of floral names.

(4) Cora(lie)

Cora is a match for Stella and Clara, and since Clara isn’t feeling quite right to Jessica’s hubby but Cora’s so similar, maybe Cora would feel like a fresh take? I’ve known many families to choose it because of cor meaning “heart” in Latin — they use it for the Immaculate Heart of Mary and/or the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is so lovely. Then I saw Coralie as a match for Rosalie, and thought that might be even better! With Jessica’s hope of moving away from Italian-feeling names, Coralie feels closer to that goal than Cora does.

(5) Phoebe

This is another name I wouldn’t have thought of for this family, but it’s a match for both Lydia and Maisie and has an early-Christian biblical association like Lydia. I just heard from a mom who I’d done a consultation for that they’d named their baby girl Phoebe and are calling her Bee, which is so darling!

(6) Beatrice, Beatrix

Speaking of Bee, I wonder what they would think of Beatrice or Beatrix? Beatrice is a match for Violet and Josephine, and it’s literary and saintly; I also included Beatrix in my book of Marian names for this reason:

“As the word Beatrix in Latin means ‘she who blesses, makes happy, delights,’ the name Beatrix can easily refer to Our Lady, who blesses us all and is the Cause of Our Joy (Causa Nostrae Laetitiae)!” (42)

Beatrix has the added fun element of being the name of Beatrix Potter — British + literary! I love Bea or Bee as a nickname, and Trix and Trixie are cute, too.

(7) Natalia

Natalia is a match for both Dominic and Tristan, so while I wouldn’t normally have included it, since it seems to lean into the Italian-ish feel rather than out of it, the fact that it’s a match for Jessica’s two favorite boy names — who themselves might normally feel mismatched as brothers (though I and the BNW don’t agree with that) — seems a big deal! It or its variants also have usage in other languages, including Croatian, German, Italian, and Ukrainian, making it a real pan-European name (I always love pan-European names!), and they could have fun looking into the diminutives for it in those languages for nickname possibilities. Natascha is a German diminutive and Natalka is Ukrainian, for example. Its nickname Talia has separate origins as a Hebrew name, and Lia sounds like the biblical Leah, both of which tip it a little closer to Lydia. Tilly could work, which has a “Lissie” feel. Some nice options!

(8) Avila

My last idea is inspired by Aveline on the list of names Jessica likes but her hubby doesn’t. Aveline is, in origin, a diminutive of Avila, and Avila is all “St. Teresa of Avila” to Catholics, but isn’t her actual name, so I thought it might be perfect! Avila as a name derives from Old German, which is a nice nod to Jessica’s husband’s heritage; Avila the city has a different etymology and is considered Spanish today (being a city in Spain).

Those are all my “official” suggestions, but there were a few others that I wanted to include in this final note, just in case. One was Willa — it’s one of the names that the “literary + Catholic namer” I linked to above used for her daughter, after Willa Cather, who wasn’t Catholic but whose fiction is considered consistent with a Catholic outlook. I’d done a spotlight post on the name a while ago in which I took some liberties in assigning it a connection to “willow” — that botanical connection and Jessica’s love of floral names made me think she might like to consider it! They could consider Willow itself, of course, but that didn’t seem to be their style as much as Willa.

Another name I saw in the literary posts was Philippa, which feels SO British to me! She’s the main character in Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede (affiliate link), about a cloister of Benedictine nuns, and the nickname Pippa is to die for. I could see the connection to the royal family being a big selling point to Jessica’s husband … but also a negative? I wanted to mention it anyway. It also feels like Lydia to me because of the apostle Philip and the Letter to the Philippians.

I also quickly went through the list of feast days and memorials from October 21 to November 10 at CatholicSaints.info, which is my favorite source for all that stuff. These were the ones that jumped out at me:

Oct. 22: John Paul II — names in his honor include Caroline, Karoline, Karolina, Charlotte

Oct. 24: Anthony Mary Claret — I like that “Claret” could connect to Clara

Oct. 27: Martyrs of Avila (some)

Oct. 28: Martyrs of Avila (others)

Oct. 29: Chiara Badano (another nice connection for Clara)

Nov. 2: Margaret of Lorraine

Nov. 4: Charles Borromeo

Nov. 5: Beatrice of Swabia

Nov. 6: Beatrice of Olive

Nov. 7: Eleanor of Portugal

And those are all my ideas! What do you all think? What name(s) would you suggest for the little sister of Gianna, Dominic, and +Stella?

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For help with Marian names, my book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon (not affiliate links). It’s perfect for expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady!