Namespotting

Namespotting: Elizabeth Bauttista

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I saw in the credits of a show I was watching the other night the first+middle combo Elizabeth Bauttista and of course I was immediately like Joyful Mystery name!!!!!!!! Isn’t that awesome?? And so meaningful!! I mean, seriously — her parents must have had St. Elizabeth and St. John the Baptist in mind, right?

The spelling Bauttista isn’t one I’ve come across — I’ve only seen the similar Bautista, and every one of the Baptist names are listed as masculine on behindthename, but they all seem so perfect for girls that I was surprised their usage is given as exclusively masculine. Which made me all the happier to see Elizabeth Bauttista — I knew they must have feminine usage!

I’m totally dying over the idea of Elizabeth + a Baptist name — whenever I think of the Baptist names I think of pairing some form of John with it, but pairing a form of Elizabeth with it is so great! I started toying with other combos and loved how pretty and unexpected combos like Elsa Baptiste, Isabella Bautista, and Elisabetta Battista would be.

Do you know anyone with a form of Baptist in his or her name?

Namespotting: Ave!

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I was doing some name research today (what!) and came across this awesome story of a little girl whose parents believe was healed through the touch Pope Francis. That in itself is, of course, the most amazing part of the story, but the part that’s most relevant here — and made me want to cheer — is that her name is Ave!

Ave!!! I LOVE it!! I’m saying it AH-vay, like Ave Maria,(though I don’t know if the family says it that way … though the only other way I can think it might be said is like Eve but with a long A? To rhyme with “behave”?), and I’ve long thought it can work as a first name, being so similar to Ava. I love love love seeing it used in real life, so the next time I suggest it to someone I can point to this beautiful little girl as an example. My whole day is made. 🙂 ❤

Yesterday’s Design Mom kids’ names

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Do any of you read Design Mom? I’d like to say I do because it looks really chic and big-window-sunshiney and sheer-white-curtains gorgeous, like one of those magazines where each page has a whole lot of what my house needs, but better!, because it focuses on moms and so they know about trying to figure it out with dirty messy house-wrecking children. But alas, as is my way, despite the fact that it’s “praised as a Website of the Year by Time Magazine, and a top parenting blog by the Wall Street Journal, Parents Magazine and Better Homes & Gardens,” I didn’t even know about it until yesterday when one of you dear readers pointed out the names of the children of the mama whose house and design talents were featured yesterday. I’m going to take a really wild (=not so wild) guess that that family is a Catholic family because check out these names:

Flavia
Lucas
Bosco
Siena
Hugo

Ohmygoodness.

So if I saw Flavia, Lucas, and Hugo in a sibset, I wouldn’t think much of it. Maybe I’d think they sound really international. Siena is familiar and I feel like it could go two ways: St. Catherine/St. Bernardine (mostly St. Catherine) or (as the Baby Name Wizard says) Savannah/Willow/Dahlia/Shiloh/Luna/Sierra. But if I ever see Bosco? Catholic. And if Bosco is paired with Siena? Catholiccccc. And with Lucas and Hugo? Catholicky Catholicky Catholic. (Also, there’s a crucifix on the table in the third photo, so …) (Also the mom, Celia, is Spanish. From Spain.)

Flavia I had to look into, but I shouldn’t have doubted — not only is there St. Flavia Domitilla of Terracina, but St. Helena’s full name was apparently Flavia Julia Helena Augusta! In my head I was saying FLAY-via, which was a little too much flavors-of-ice-cream (or Flavor Flav, who’s surely on his own journey like the rest of us, but maybe not what you want people thinking of when you introduce your sweet rosebud baby girl?) for me, but when I read that Celia’s Spanish I immediately switched to FLAH-via and oh my, that’s really pretty.

I had to poke around just a tiny bit, just to get a better feel of the site, and discovered that the impossibly stylish founder/designer/mother of six has some pretty awesome name taste herself. Her kiddos are:

Ralph
Maude
Olive
Oscar
Betty
Flora June

They’re not all my taste, but I love boldness in naming, and I love these particular names all together. (I also love that they used to live “in the French countryside, in a farmhouse with a name instead of an address.” I guess you’d have to if you were a famous designer and gave your kids those names. It’s like a movie, no?)

In the spirit of Design Mom, I’ll leave you with this picture, which is probably the only one of my house I would share with the world. I took it last winter because I loved that you could see the brown basket and the Irish vase flanking the toaster behind the glowing candlefire. Also the clean counter. (!) But the real star of the shot is the cheesecake and homemade caramel latte-type thing. Food&coffee’s my jam. Happy Wednesday! 😀

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Dominican religious names, etc.

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I went to a Lay Dominican Regional Meeting today and had the great pleasure of meeting an awesome Dominican priest named Fr. Bede — Bede! I love it!! I’ve suggested it before as a nickname for Benedict, but I have to say, today I was loving it on his own. I asked him if it was a religious name or his birth name, and he confirmed it was his religious name, taken in honor of Fr. Bede Jarrett, OP. I asked him how many of the Dominican friars take a new name, and he thought about two-thirds. I thought that was really interesting! I also heard him talking about one of his brother friars whose name is Br. Athanasius. Swoon!

It also made me realize that I don’t think I ever told you all that I have a religious name — we’re able to take one when we take our vows if we’d like to, and mine is Maria Rosa Dominica, for Our Lady, St. Rose of Lima (a Third Order Dominican and my birthday saint), and St. Dominic of course. Some of our other members are: Esther Anthony, Mary Catherine, Mary Dominic and … I can’t remember who else! I’m pretty sure we have a Thomas (for Aquinas) … gah! How is my namey mind failing me?! I’ll have to get back to you with the others, each one is so beautiful and so personally meaningful.

We also had the amazing blessing of having several relics on display during our meeting — St. Dominic, St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. John Neumann, Bl. Bartolo Longo (aka Br. Rosary, love it!), and Fr. McGivney (our meeting was held at our local Knights of Columbus hall). I felt like we had a roomful of heavenly friends with us. 🙂

I hope you all had a great Saturday!

Cate: Closet Catholic?

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So yesterday’s post about little Roman had me thinking about actress Cate Blanchett because she also has a son named Roman — Roman Robert, which is another totally fab alliterative combo — and then I was thinking about her other kids’ names (because I’ve long loved each one), and was so struck (again) by the heavy-hitting saintliness of the names that I had to look up whether or not she’s Catholic. Because who else would name their children:

Dashiell John
Roman Robert
Ignatius Martin
Edith Vivian Patricia

So we have:

I mean, really. The only one that doesn’t scream ROME! (figuratively or literally 😀 ) is Dashiell, and while his middle name mightn’t seem particularly faithy if he was an only child or if his sibs had different sorts of names, within the context of the other kids, allllll I see is St. John [whoever]. Also, apparently they named their first after Cate’s husband’s fave author Dashiell Hammett, who was baptized Catholic. So! (And now I feel like the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where everything turns out to be originally Greek. “Kimono, kimono, kimono. Ha! Of course! Kimono is come from the Greek word himona, is mean winter. So, what do you wear in the wintertime to stay warm? A robe. You see: robe, kimono. There you go!” 😀 )

Also — did you know her full name? I only just read it and I’m dying, it’s goooorgeous: Catherine Élise (with the accent and all!). Her great taste in names is genetic, clearly. (Her sibs are Robert and Genevieve. It just gets better and better.) And I’m 1000% not surprised that her full name is so beautiful and classy, since she seems that way herself. (And parents, take heart: apparently “[s]he had a penchant for dressing in masculine clothing, and went through goth and punk phases during her teenaged years, shaving her head at one point.”)

Anyway, to answer the original question: It doesn’t seem as though she’s Catholic after all — she was actually included in a list of Atheist, Agnostic, or Non-Religious Actors and Directors. So lots of time spent today on a lovely lady who’s only connection to our blog is her (probably) inadvertent use of some amazing saint names! What do you all think of her name taste? Are you as surprised as I to see so many Catholicky Catholic names used by a non-Catholic family?

Jesus’ genealogy

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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?

Alumni mag namespotting

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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

Apartment Therapy names

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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?

Alumni mag namespotting, and Swistle question

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You know I love getting those alumni mags in the mail! The update section — where everyone shares what they’re doing, like jobs, marriage, and babies — is like a little Christmas-come-early gift. Just the other day I spotted this triplet set (!) (alt characters used for privacy):

S!m0n V!nc3nt
Le0 Charl3s
Cec!lia M@ry

I mean really. A million bonus points to them for Superb Catholic Naming.

I also read this Swistle post yesterday and wondered what you all think: Is Judah “too Judas” for use? I personally don’t ever connect Judas Iscariot with the names Judah or Jude, even though all three are just variants of the same name. Really, all three have totally different feels to me:

  • Judas is one of those names that Catholics aren’t allowed to use (Canon 855 states that, “Parents, sponsors, and the pastor are to take care that a name foreign to Christian sensibility is not given”)
  • Judah is Ben Hur, or (in my experience) most likely from a Jewish family
  • Jude is all ours (and maybe a little bit Brit, thank you Beatles and Jude Law) because of St. Jude Thaddeus, and his namesake St. Jude’s Hospital, as well as all the little Catholic boys I know named Jude

I have to say, I was surprised that the couple in the Swistle post had heard “the guy that betrayed the savior?” from “99% of our friends and family” — what are your thoughts/experience?

Namespotting/hearing

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I’m backed up on a couple of things (including a few consultations — they’re coming!!) so my quick post for today is:

— I heard on the radio today an ad for a festival at a local parish called St. Adalbert’s, and though I’d never heard it said (I’ve never been to that church) I’d always assumed it was said AH-dul-bert, but the radio guy said ah-DEL-bert, which surprised me. I just looked it up on behindthename and they have the former pronunciation listed. Do you think the radio guy just didn’t know how to say the name? Or have you heard Adalbert said with the stress on the second syllable?

— I saw today a local woman whose given name is Mary Lourdes (love love!), and she goes by Mary Lou. Makes me wonder how many other Mary Lous might really be Mary Lourdes, or named after a Mary Lourdes? My husband had an aunt who went by Lou, and her given name was Lourdes. I’m thinking updated nicknames might be Lola (a la Madonna’s daughter Lourdes nicked Lola. I admit, I love it, the whole thing) or Lulu. I also have a soft spot for Louie on a girl — I have a cousin whose name is not anything like Lourdes/Lulu but my mom nicknamed her Louie years ago and it stuck — I love it, maybe mostly because it’s so affectionate? I don’t know if little Lourdes at My Child I Love You goes by a nickname? I just love seeing Lourdes as a name.