You guys! Birth announcements are rolling in! Wooo!!! Tonight I’m happy to announce the birth of a little guy whose mama I did a private consultation for a while ago, and his amazingly handsome name is … Benedict Xavier!
He joins a big brother, Finnian nicked Finn, and a big sister, Genevieve nicked Gigi, and he’s already being called Benny, and I’m just dying over the sweetness of this sib set!!
Congratulations to the whole family, and happy birthday Baby Benedict!!
Benedict Xavier
An email mishap caused one of my scheduled consultations to not post the day it was supposed to, so I’m making it up to the mama today with this out-of-the-ordinary not-a-Monday bonus post!
Amy and her husband are expecting their third baby, gender unknown. Their other children are:
Clara Grace
Hugh Joseph
I just love their names together! A beautiful sib set! Amy writes,
“I really like names that are old fashioned but sort of out of use, (such as Hugh) nicknames aren’t a huge concern for me, although I would embrace it to have the long name of a saint ie Helena but go by Ellie … I really look forward to hearing what you have to say. I love my two children’s names SO much I feel like I have set myself up for an impossible task finding more names I love as much and we may likely have many more (this will be three in three and a half years).”
She’d also prefer to have a girl’s name that doesn’t end in -a. Names Amy and her husband have considered include:
Sybil
Lilian
Lucy
Felicity
Pauline or Paula nicked Polly
Jason
Jude
And other names Amy likes include:
Grover (“nixed for obvious reasons, but I still can’t get it out of my head! It worked for president Cleveland!“)
Jillian (“my grandmothers name“)
John Henry (“after St. Newman“)
Lewis (“but don’t want Huey and Louie“)
Georgia
Margot
Adelaide
Daisy
Additionally, Amy wondered about finding creative ways to work in the grandparents’ names: Barbara Lorraine, Anthony Paul, Mark Michael, and Melissa Mary.
First off I thought I’d address Amy and her husband’s desire to name a child in honor of his/her grandparents: Barbara Lorraine, Anthony Paul, Mark Michael, and Melissa Mary. I’ll address ways to connect explicitly to their names in my official suggestions below, but otherwise my very first thought was, maybe using their initials? If they named a child (boy or girl) with MM initials, they’d have the paternal grandparents taken care of right there! BL for Barbara Lorraine could be reimagined as something like Benedict Leo for a boy. Anthony Paul’s an easy one, since they already have Pauline/Paula on their list of maybes. Or maybe Amy’s maiden name as a first/middle could be the honor for her parents? Otherwise, I think I have some decent ideas below …
I think Amy and her husband have a great list of possibilities, so I thought I’d use them, as well as Clara and Hugh’s names, as inspiration for new ideas. I always shoot for three suggestions for each gender, but I actually came up with four each here:
Girls
(1) Marian
As you all know from reading the blog, I almost always start with the Baby Name Wizard book for inspiration, as it provides for each entry boy and girl names that are similar in style/feel/popularity. Marian was a big winner for this family! It’s similar to Hugh, Pauline, and Lewis. I love that it’s a Mary name, both for Our Lady, but also for Grandma Melissa Mary’s middle name! If Marian was paired with an M middle, both paternal grandparents would be taken care of honor-wise through MM initials, and if that middle name was Michaela?? Marian Michaela honors Mark Michael and Melissa Mary doubly! I am loving this idea!
(2) Sylvie
I was really focusing on trying to find doesn’t-end-in-a girl names for Amy and her hubs, and Sylvie was one of my favorites. Both Lewis and Marian have Sylvia listed as similar, but since Sylvia ends in a, I thought Sylvie was an easy fix. It’s a full and proper name on its own – the French form of Sylvia – and it’s sort of similar to Sophia/Sophie without all the hype. I really like Sylvie.
(3) Adele (Edel?)
Adele was another name that surprised me by revealing itself as similar to more than one of the names Amy and her hubs have used or have considered (or that I’ve thought might work for them). I like that it doesn’t end in –a, and it’s got such a pretty sound. I thought perhaps, if they didn’t care for the popularity of the singer, the spelling Edel might appeal? Ven. Edel Quinn’s first name is said just like Adele, but the spelling moves it in a different direction. (I talked about her a little a while ago.) But wait — what if they did the Adele spelling with Pauline as the middle? Would Grandpa Anthony Paul feel honored by Adele Pauline? So pretty!
(4) Juliet or Verity
Felicity was one of the names on Amy’s list that surprised me, just because I see it a LOT in Catholic families, which is great because it’s such a beautiful name and a great saint, but her taste otherwise seemed to go towards less popular. So I took a look at the names that were listed as similar, looking for more offbeat/older suggestions, and Juliet and Verity both caught my eye. Juliet is one of my personal faves, so this might be me inserting myself (sorry! I try not to!) but it’s such a gorgeous name, and it doesn’t end in –a, AND I’ve seen Jilly used as a nickname for the Juli- names, and I immediately thought of Amy’s Grandma Jillian and wondered if this might be a nice nod to her? Juliet nicked Jilly? Or even Juliet Ann, which could easily mush into Jillian on occasion/as a nickname? And Verity just struck me as having the same kind of “old,” distinguished, Brit feel as Hugh. It’s kind of cool and interesting, and definitely not heard very much at all, and the meaning of “truth” is always amazing.
Boys
(1) Miles/Milo
As with the girls, I looked for names that repeated in the lists of names similar to the ones Amy and her hubs like. Miles has been on my radar a lot lately, so when I saw it as being similar to their taste (especially Clara), I got excited. THEN when I remembered about Grandpa Mark Michael, I got even more excited, because as far as I can tell, name experts aren’t totally sure what Miles’ origins are, but one theory is that it started as a nickname for Michael. How cool is that?? So I loved it for this family, either on its own, or as Michael nicked Miles, or as Milo.
(2) Oscar
Ooh Oscar! I’m just not hearing Oscar much at all, and I think it needs more attention! It totally strikes me as the kind of name this family might like. I spotlighted it a while ago in light of Archbishop Oscar Romero’s upcoming canonization. Kind of cool for a baby boy born in the same year!
(3) Leo
Leo was another winner in the BNW book for Amy and her hubs, similar to Clara, Lucy, Jude, and Milo. It reminded me a lot of Louie, but different enough that it’s totally fine as a brother to Hugh. I also thought it could work as an honor for Barbara Lorraine – it’s similar to Lorraine (in fact, Lorraine contains all the letters of Leo), so could work as a first name in honor of her, but if they put it in the middle — something like Benedict Leo — it would be her exact initials. (Bennett is a medieval form of Benedict — maybe Bennett would be more their style?)
(4) Duncan
Duncan was kind of a wild card idea. It was another one that was similar in style to Felicity, but pretty unusual. I know one in real life, and he has a brother Garrett – I feel like Hugh might really work as a brother to Duncan and Garrett. So I thought it was worth a mention!
*These were my ideas when I first wrote back to Amy, but revisiting them today, I thought I might add Briony to the girl list — I’m loving the idea of Briony Lorraine (initials B.L., like Grandma!) or Briony Pauline (after Grandpa’s middle name) …
And those are my ideas! What do you all think? What names might you suggest for a brother or a sister to Clara and Hugh?
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?
I was looking through some old magazines the other day and found two alumni mags with some fun baby names. And how appropriate, this week that school starts for so many!
I loved (alt characters used for privacy):
Andr3w, Isab3lla, Is@@c, and (newborn) S@rah Mar!a Rapha3la (love that!)
Luk@, Luc!ja, S!mun, and P@ula (interesting because a lot of people I know, myself included, would likely shy away from using both Luke and Lucy names/variants)
T0dd, J0s3ph, G!anna, and (newborn) R0se Cec!l!a
R0se B3atr!ce and Cla!r3 Th3r3sa
Grac3, Ann!e, and Lucy
Edm0nd Patr!ck
S@r@h, Fa!th, Chr!st0pher, Luk3, D0m!n!c, Grac3, PJ, and (newborn) J0hn P@tr!ck
R3b3kah, Samu3l, Jac0b, Paul, M!r!am, and Z!pp0rah
J0hn, Th3r3s3, and El!jah
Mandi from A Blog About Miscarriage and her husband are expecting their sixth (second born) baby! Their older daughter on earth is:
Lucia Rose
And their babies in heaven are:
Francis Michael
Julian Gabriel
Adrienne Rafael
Christian Michael
(Mandi blogged about all her babies’ names here, including explanations, which is helpful when coming up with suggestions.)
She writes,
“I’m looking for some help with a middle name … We aren’t going to find out whether we are having a boy or girl, but we have a boy’s name already chosen … We also have chosen the first name for a little girl, Cecilia, but I’m having a hard time coming up with a middle name I like with it. Our daughter’s name is Lucia Rose … I love her middle name for a few reasons — it’s a family name, a Saint name, very traditional and I like that it’s short coming after a several syllable first name. I’d love to find something similar for Cecilia (and in fact, I’ve thought quite a bit about just using Rose again), particularly a one syllable name, but I haven’t found anything I particularly like. Cecilia is a family name, so I don’t necessarily need the middle name to have a family link but I can’t seem to find any one syllable girls names that I like even remotely as well as I love Rose. Anne doesn’t seem to work because Cecilia ends in an A, I’m not a fan of Ruth or May or Jane or virtue names like Grace, Faith, or Hope. And I really don’t like more modern or trendy names like Elle. (So maybe I just don’t like anything?) I’d love if I found a Marian name or a name with a significant meaning, but I’m not sure that there is one that will fit our needs. Just for reference, two of the middle names we do like are Paloma and Miriam (we LOVE Miriam because it means “wished-for child” and this little one is coming after four miscarriages in a row) but they both seem too lengthy coming after the already lengthy Cecilia.”
I just sigh and swoon over sisters Lucia and Cecilia, so lovely!
This was an interesting dilemma, because so many of the names I thought of as I was reading Mandi’s email turned out to be unusable per the end of her email!
First off, I don’t hate the idea of possibly using Rose again as the middle. As I posted about recently here and here, it’s a common (or not uncommon) tradition for all the girls in a family to have Mary as part of their name, for example, or for all the girls to have Mom’s maiden name as a middle, that kind of thing — sisters having the same middle is totally normal and not that unusual. It’s kind of a nice link between them, and Rose is like an updated Mary — still Marian, but not Mary. Cecilia Rose is beautiful.
I did come up with a bunch of other ideas though, in case Mandi and her husband really don’t want to repeat Rose:
(1) Pearl
This is hands down my favorite option for them. I feel like Pearl used to have a really old lady feel, but I’ve been seeing it more and more recently on little girls, as both firsts and middles (I mean, not so much that one needs to shy away because of trendiness! Just that it’s losing its old lady image), and I wrote a while ago about how it can be Marian, so I love it for this family! Lucia Rose and Cecilia Pearl. Really beautiful!
(2) Normal one-syllable names
I’m calling them “normal” because they’re just that:
(3) More offbeat one-syllable names
Here are the ideas that might seem a little crazy, or a little cool (some may be too modern/trendy feeling for Mandi and her husband’s taste?):
(4) A couple two-syllable options
Wait! Don’t disregard my two-syllable ideas just yet! Two came to mind that I thought sounded really nice with Cecilia and had great meaning and weren’t overly long (as far as two syllable names go):
And those are all my ideas! What do you all think? What preferably one-syllable middle names would you suggest for Mandi and her husband to pair with Cecilia?
My oldest was born in September, and my baby shower was right around Labor Day, so you know there were all the Labor Day jokes and even my cake said, “Happy Labor Day, Kate!” 😀
My little blog has felt a little like a pregnancy — months of growing and changing and developing — and I was so excited to see that I passed 100,000 page views yesterday! I started this blog last June, but didn’t have any real readers besides my mom (ever faithful) and one of my closest friends until January, when I posted ideas for Simcha’s baby. And then — whoa! So I’m fairly confident in saying nearly all of those 100,000 page views happened between January 8th and yesterday. I know that’s small potatoes compared to some of you amazing bloggers, but it’s way more than I’ve ever seen in any of my blogging efforts (I’ve had a couple others). And it’s all because of all of you!! So thank you thank you, again, for helping me create this sweet community, I’ve loved every minute of it. ❤
I’d long looked toward 100,000 views as my personal benchmark for upgrading the blog to a custom domain, and I did so this morning, so while you will still be able to get here via sanctanomina.wordpress.com, I’m now the happy owner of sanctanomina.net. A small thing but a big thing I think, as it seemed so far in the future when I set that goal, and now here it is.
I’ll be posting today’s consultation in a bit, and otherwise I hope you all have a great day!
I’ve seen the Apartment Therapy site referred to a million times in name posts on various sites, and while I’ve not gotten into myself, I did love perusing its recent posts on the names that appeared in the last year. Check out the boys’ list and the girls’ list, there are some real gems. There are some great offbeat-ish (dare I say hipster?) Catholicky Catholic names on there (Leo, Oliver, Xavier, Colette, Gemma, Maite et al.), but the one that really jumped out at me was Julip — it’s not often I come across a name that I’ve never seen before that I actually really like, but Julip was definitely one. It made me think of a cross between tulip and julep with an echo of Juniper, really intriguing (though not what I would consider Catholic).
What were your favorite names on these lists? Are you an Apartment Therapy fan?
Remember when I posted Grace Patton’s birth story, because it contained “some namey stuff,” and I explained that I “wouldn’t feel justified linking to [birth stories] here if they didn’t have some name connection”? Well lucky for us all Jenny Uebbing‘s birth story includes some namey stuff too! Woo! It’s in two parts, and the reason behind his name’s mentioned in the second, if you truly just want to read the namey stuff. (I myself love a good birth story — in fact, I’ve never read a bad one, and I cry at every.single.one. Also anytime I see a birth on TV. I’m a big cryer.)
Anyway! Here’s Luke Maximilian: A birth story with naming rights (episode 1) and Luke Maximilian’s birth story, part 2 (finale). Enjoy!
Just a couple quick things that I enjoyed recently:
I Love My Kid’s Unusual Name, about a Mary Cecilia nicked Mamie and her parents’ struggle over the naming process. I guess it’s true that I don’t hear Mamie too much, but I’m not sure I would have classified it as “unusual” until reading this. I guess it is, though “Mary Cecilia” has high-powered Sancta Nomina style. 🙂
And two things from the Twitter-verse:
That’s what I got for you today! Happy Thursday!
Can it be? THREE birth announcements in two days?? YES!!!
Jennie, whose consultation I posted last month, has given birth to her baby girl, and her beautiful name is … Olivia Rose!
Jennie writes,
“Just wanted to let you know our newest addition arrived last Friday morning. Miss Olivia Rose has been a perfect addition to our family and we are all thrilled.
Her name (and we hope her disposition will follow suit) means peace and beauty. Thank you for your suggestion of the name Olivia. It wasn’t on our original list of names, but we both ultimately fell in love with it and we think it fits in perfectly with our other children’s names.
One of your readers noted the connection of the name Olivia with Our Lady of the Olives. I had never heard of that particular Marian devotion before, and I am so grateful she pointed it out. Once I read about it, I was sold on the name Olivia.
We chose Rose as her middle name in honor of Our Lady, the “mystical Rose.” … We pray our little Olivia Rose always stays close to Our Lady and and that in turn, she keeps her closer to her Son.
Thanks again for your help.”
How beautiful is the name Olivia Rose?? And packed with such meaning!! I’m so so so excited that Laura’s comment, connecting Olivia to Our Lady of Olives (who I’d not known of before), helped Jennie and her husband be “sold on the name Olivia”!! This blog would be nothing without all of you!!
Congratulations to Jennie and Matthew and big sibs Hannah, Abigail, and Lucas, and happy birthday Baby Olivia!!
Sancta Nomina 