A mama emailed me last fall with questions about the pronunciation of Zelie, as she wanted to name her boy/girl twins after our new Martin saints. She recently wrote to let me know that they arrived and have indeed been named after those great saints: Zelie Marigold Bélanger and Louis Patrick Loughlin!

She writes,

“Hello Kate!

I know this is very belated but I wanted to thank you for giving me peace of mind in our babies’ naming before our big day.

They were born on November 30, 2015. Their names are Zelie Marigold Bélanger and Louis Patrick Loughlin. Zelie rhyming with jelly, and Louis rhyming with gooey. When we would talk about their names before they were born, that is how we pronounced them and I’m so happy that they fit them perfectly. I guess we named them names that can have a bunch of different pronunciations but we are happy with the pronunciations that we picked.

Marigold is their great great grandmother’s name on my husband’s side and a name to honor Our Lady. (In my head, I think of the particular image of the coronation of Mary) And Bélanger is a family last name and the last name of Blessed Dina, who is an ancestor of my husband! Patrick is their great great grandfather’s name of my side and Loughlin is my mother’s maiden name.

We use second middle names in our family to honor and remember family surnames which I feel are so quickly forgotten.

They join their older brothers Fulton Lawrence Keene and Gilbert Gerard O’Hara. Their names are also full of meaning as well! I want when my children to ask me why I named them a particular name to have a story to tell them!

A quick note- You mentioned that accent marks on official forms were not recognized but when we wrote Bélanger down, we figured what’s not to lose if they didn’t add the accent mark for a second middle name. And when her birth certificate came the accent mark was present on the official document!

Thank you again so much! Reading your blog before our twins were born really helped broaden my horizon in how to name and honor family and saints. We need all the saints we can get on our family’s “team,” as I say, so finding ways to add them into our children’s names was fun!“

Can you believe the amazing naminess that’s included in this mama’s note??!! So! Many! Great! Names! And I’m really glad to include the bit about the accent marks — when this mom had asked me about them, I’d said with blustery confidence,

“My personal feeling about accents is that they cause more headaches than are necessary. Official forms in America don’t allow for them, and accents always confuse others as to where the accent goes and what it means.”

I’m really glad to have been proven wrong — how fun that accents are recognized on birth certificates! And I’m glad that the parents ignored me and went ahead with Bélanger — my personal feelings are are totally subjective and fickle, after all. (Despite what I said, I actually love me a good accented name — it always looks so regal!)

Thank you to these proud parents for letting me post such a fun birth announcement!  Congratulations to the whole family (including big brothers Fulton and Gilbert!), and happy birthday Babies Zelie and Louis!!

Zelie Marigold Bélanger and Louis Patrick Loughlin