Naming nitty gritty

Wait to see to name?

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Alrighty, another burning question on my mind: Do you wait until you see your baby to bestow a name, or do you decide ahead of time? Why or why not?

I know of people who narrow their choices down to two or three and wait until they see the baby to decide which of the names fits the baby the best (or throw them all out upon seeing the baby and start afresh because none on the list seem to suit the baby). And then there is everyone else who decides on a name and that’s the name (or, if they change their minds, it’s for some other reason than “It didn’t suit the baby”). (We’re the latter.)

Old Testament names okay for Catholics?

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A reader emailed me with this intriguing bit of info:

“I was reading an article a while back (I wish I could find it again) about Catholics and how we shouldn’t use Old Testament names. Instead of going back to the old covenant, we should look towards the saints for name inspiration and looking at the Old Testament was a protestant thing to do. What do you think about this? Do you think using names from the Old Testament is fine as a Catholic?”

I might have felt the tiniest bit ragey while reading it, because my initial reaction was That’s a bunch of bologna! and whoever is spreading this kind of info is spreading untruths, and can’t you just see a good-hearted well-intentioned mama of an Elijah or Esther starting to twitch upon hearing that the names she gave her babies in good faith are actually not okay?

I hate that kind of thing. We have enough to worry about without worrying about things we don’t need to worry about. Right? I mean, really.

I get that sometimes it’s an honest mistake. I also get that certain things used to be different from now, so the older generations might have a certain idea about things that the younger generations are unfamiliar with and vice versa. Just in the arena of baby names, as I noted on my “About this blog” page,

“In the old days, you may have heard, parents who wanted to have their babies baptized in the Catholic Church had to bestow a saint’s name — or the priest would. Indeed, the old Code of Canon Law (in effect from 1917 until 1983) did stipulate that the baby needed to be given a Christian name, and if not, the priest was to add a saint’s name to the baby’s given name. (Canon 761)

The Code of Canon Law changed in 1983, and the new naming requirements are not so strict. Canon 855 states that, “Parents, sponsors, and the pastor are to take care that a name foreign to Christian sensibility is not given.” That’s it. Basically, most names are totally fine.”

So I decided to look into it, and found this post on Nameberry, which asks,

“I posted here last week that we finally found our perfect boys name: Tobias. I love it, and so does my husband. I’m just a little confused about using Old Testament names, as a Catholic (I’m new to Catholicism). My mother in law told us that Catholics traditionally use New Testament names/Saint names for Catholic babies, and that Old Testament names like Tobias are traditionally considered to be Hebrew/Jewish names. I would love some clarity on this subject. Is the name Tobias traditionally considered a Jewish boy’s name? Of course, it won’t make or break using the name for us; I am just curious. Thanks!“

I immediately zeroed in on “My mother in law told us” which, to me, smacks of older generation vs. younger generation. I’m sure her mil was not trying to deceive her — the mil likely believes that New Testament and A.D. Saints’ names are the best to be used — perhaps that was even the definition of a “Christian name,” since I suppose pre-Jesus names aren’t considered technically “Christian.”

So then I looked into whether or not the Old Testament holy people are considered Saints — I always thought they were, but maybe not? I found this good article, “Old Testament Saints?” by Fr. Ray Ryland on Our Sunday Visitor’s site, which explains that “the Church does in various ways venerate and ask for the intercession of Old Testament saints,” as in the litanies of the saints, the First Eucharistic prayer, and one of the general prayers of the funeral liturgy. Fr. Ryland also notes that the Roman Martyrology, which lists “all the saints whom the Church had officially recognized up to” its publication in the 1600s, “remembers, among others, the following Old Testament saints: the prophet Habakkuk (Jan. 15); Isaiah (July 6); Daniel and Elias/Elijah (July 20 and 21); the seven Maccabees and their mother (Aug. 17); Abraham (Oct. 9); and King David (Dec. 29).”

My own grandfather’s first name was David, and he was born in Ireland and baptized Catholic (an interesting example, considering he was born in 1904 — definitely “old generation”). Another good example, using David again, is my other grandfather, who was a convert to Catholicism, and when he converted, since neither his first nor middle names were recognized as “Christian names,” he changed his middle to David.

And what about St. Isaac Jogues? Isaac is OLD TESTAMENT, and yet (as far as I can tell) Catholic parents in the very early 1600s gave it to their son. (I say “as far as I can tell” because I can’t find any evidence that Isaac is his religious name rather than his birth name. But even if it was not his birth name, it only bolsters my argument that Old Testament names are fine fine fine for Catholics, if even a priest can choose it for his religious name.)

Have any of you heard this perspective before, that Catholics should stick to New Testament and other post-Jesus Saints’ names?

Initials as names

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Similar to the “Acronames” post of the other day, I was thinking today about nicknames I like that could conceivably be from initials … specifically I was thinking about Edie, and how much I like Edie, and how it would be really interesting to have Edie be a nickname for Elizabeth Dolores, for example. E.D.=Edie.

One of the commenters on the BNW Acronames post said she knows a little girl named Isabelle Verity who goes by Ivy (from her initials: I.V.). So clever!

I’m particularly interested in initials that sound like a recognized name, and then the nickname is actually spelled like that name, instead of using the initials. Like Edie instead of E.D., Ivy instead of I.V. I tried to think of some others and came up with:

M.E. — Emmy

L.E. — Ellie

S.E. — Essie

F.E. — Effie

J.C. — Jacey

K.C. — Casey

O.D. — Odie

L.C. — Elsie

A.D. — Adie

B.B. — Bebe

D.D. — Didi

C.C. — Cece

G.G. — Gigi

A.V. — Avie

E.V. — Evie

V.V. — Vivi

V.N. — Vienne

D.M. — Diem

D.O. — Deo

G.O. — Geo

T.O. — Teo

V.O. — Vio

I.C. — Icy (haha just kidding!) (unless you love it)

And Amy from the Baby Enloe consultation says she loves that her initials spell her name: A.M.E.

I’d love to see what others you all could come up with! It could be a really fun naming exercise to start with a nickname like this, like Ellie for example, and back into what L.E. combos could work. It just seems to open up a whole lot more options! You could feel free to go a little more nuts with the given names, knowing that an easier nickname is available, or it could make you feel easier about an unfavorite family name you feel bound to use.

Can you think of other examples like this? How about full names for the initials? Do you know anyone who has a name/initials/nickname like this?

Names for miscarried babies

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Mandi over at A Blog About Miscarriage posted today about the names she and her husband gave the four babies they lost to miscarriage. They chose to use gender neutral names, as they don’t know if their little ones are boys or girls. She told me, “When we were trying to name the babies we lost, I tried googling “gender neutral Catholic names” and “gender neutral Saint names” and didn’t come up with much,” so she also listed a bunch of the gender neutral names she thought of, in case it’s helpful for other parents like her “who don’t like naming a baby a gender specific name without knowing the gender for sure,” and she wondered if I had any further ideas?

It was hard to come up with more! Mandi listed so many great ones already … the only ones I could come up with off the top of my head without spending three days poring through name books/sites were:

Mary/Marie/Maria — of course these are girls’ names, but men such as St. Clement Maria Hofbauer and St. Anthony Mary Claret used them as well.

Angel — I once knew a girl named Angel, and the main male character in Tess of the d’Urbervilles is Angel Clare (what a beautiful combo itself!)

Clair — speaking of Clare, Clair (that spelling) is actually the male form of Clare. It also makes me think of Sinclair, which is a male name that literally means “St. Clair” — to me, then, Clair and Sinclair could be used for either boys or girls.

Sidney/Sydney — Sinclair makes me think of Sidney, which could refer either to St. Denis or the “Holy Winding Sheet of Christ” (Shroud of Turin).

Rosario — means “Rosary” and is feminine in Spanish and masculine in Italian

Guadalupe — from Our Lady of Guadalupe, and is used for both boys and girls

Sam — this could work nicely for a boy or a girl

Nicola — it’s masculine in Italian but feminine in German, Czech, and English

Luca — it’s masculine in Italian, Romanian, and German, and feminine in Hungarian and Croatian (and English sometimes too — I know a girl named Luca)

Clairvaux, Vianney, Majella, Liguori — I’ve seen these last names of male saints used for girls

Another option, which is what we did, was to give the baby a first and middle name, and have one name be masculine, and one be feminine.

Do you have any other saintly names that would be suitable for either a boy or a girl? Have you named a miscarried baby, and if so, did you use a gender neutral name?

Name carryover?

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Quick question for today: I think this might apply mostly to those who don’t find out the baby’s gender before birth, but if you decide on a boy name and a girl name for your baby-on-the-way, do you carry over the unused name and consider it for the next baby, or do you now cross that name off your list?

For example, if you decided on Adam for a boy and Anna for a girl, and you had a boy, do you consider Anna for a girl the next time you’re expecting, or do you cross Anna permanently off the list? Why or why not?

We carry over the name. We’ve had the same girl name picked out through all of these boys, and if we ever have a girl, it will be her name. But I’ve heard from time to time from other parents who feel like, using the names from the examples above, Anna somehow seems like it *belongs* to Adam — it would have been his name if he were a girl, and now it seems Anna would be inappropriate for any other sibling. I’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences!

Omri and his brothers

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I’m reading The Indian in the Cupboard to my three oldest boys, a book I haven’t read since I was little, and I remember very little about it. We’ve only gotten through the first chapter and of course, what I mostly stayed with me are the names of the three brothers:

Omri — the main character

Adiel and Gillon — his brothers

They’re unfamiliar to me — if I had to hazard a guess, I’d guess a Hebrew origin for Adiel, with the -el ending being so like Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Nathaniel, Samuel. Gillon strikes me as French maybe. Omri I had no clue about, nor how to pronounce it — I was saying AHM-ree in the my head, short O, the O like in hot. I asked my son how he would say it, since he’s read it before, and he said he thought it was OHM-ree, long O, the O like in home.

So of course I had to look the names up. Behindthename.com is my #1 go-to source for name meanings and origins, and it had no official entry for the brothers’ names! Only user-submitted entries, which may or may not be accurate:

Adiel is said to be “A Hebrew name meaning ‘ornament of God’ or ‘God is my ornament’. In the Old Testament, Adiel was the father of Azmaveth, who was treasurer under David and Solomon. Another bearer of this name in the Old Testament was a family head of the tribe of Simeon. In Ma’asseh Merkabah, Adiel is an angelic guard of the seventh heavenly hall.”

Gillon is only listed, with no info given.

Omri, however, had its own official entry: “Possibly means “life” or “servant” in Hebrew (or a related Semitic language). This was the name of a 9th-century BC military commander who became king of Israel. He appears in the Old Testament, where he is denounced as being wicked.”

In the comments, which again aren’t officially approved as accurate, the pronunciations OHM-ree and UM-ree are both given.

I’m interested in character-naming, and how authors choose the names they do — because they like them? Because they’re on their list of favorite names for children that they never got to use? Or because of the name’s meaning and connection with the character’s personality/role in the story? I’m kind of baffled by the choices here — they’re too unfamiliar to me to mean anything.

(Also, I admit that the name I really loved the most was Gillon, because of my recent post about Gil/Gilbert Blythe. I say it “GILL-en in my head — does that seem right? I kind of love it.)

Do any of you know any more about Omri, Gillon, and Adiel?

ETA: Given that the biblical Omri was “denounced as being wicked,” isn’t that a strange choice for a boy character? I don’t care as much about name meanings in real life, but for a literary character?

ETA2: My previous comment wasn’t entirely accurate — the biblical Omri “denounced as being wicked” is associated baggage, separate from the meaning. The meaning of “life” or “servant” is nice, and likely does have a tie-in with the book’s story.

Feminized masculine names, take 2

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Okay, I asked my husband about this — turns out he doesn’t like these kinds of names either! I had no idea, since one of his very favorite names is Charlotte. “That’s different,” he said, because it doesn’t *look* like the boy name. Like Josephine looks too much like Joseph. (I don’t know, CHARLes and CHARLotte … that’s a pretty big similarity there, in appearance much more than sound.)

I went through the list of names I’d included in my last post — he said Jane is fine, for example, because it’s so removed from John. Kristin is not his favorite, but not because it originated in a male name (again, because it doesn’t *look* like a boy name). What about Francesca? Francis with a -ca on the end? He also declared that “fine” because “it’s foreign.” Ah.

I suspect those husbands who feel similarly have a similarly shaky argument.

Feminized masculine names?

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In the past couple of weeks I’ve heard about two different husbands who don’t like “girl names that came from boy names.”* Have you heard this? Do you share this opinion?

I guess I could see it if a family made a point of letting everyone know they hoped for a boy, and then when a girl was born and she was a given a feminized masculine name — that might seem a little weird. Like they were so hoping for a boy that they didn’t even have a girl name picked out, like she was a disappointment.

Or, in a family like mine, where there are a whole bunch of boys and no girls, if Little Miss were to show up and be given a feminized masculine name — that might seem a little weird too. Like really? After all those boys named, you can’t come up with a girl name?

But otherwise, I’m just thinking of all the gooorgeous, really beautiful, really feminine names that are missed out on! Like:

Josephine

Victoria

Christiana (and all the Christ-/Kris- names)

Paulina

Michaela and Michelle

Tamsin

Maybe Olivia (it may or may not be derived from Oliver)

Jane

Joanna

Jacinta

Simone

Pippa

Francesca

Gabrielle and Gabriella

Even the Juli- names come ultimately from Julius (and what’s more stereotypically feminine than Juliet??)

And that’s just the briefest smattering of examples. I’m certainly not begrudging anyone their taste — I mean, your taste is your taste, you can’t make yourself like something you don’t like. But the names that are missed out on! And how overwhelmingly feminine these name are! Some of them downright frilly! Wives of such husbands, you are good women. 😉

*This is different than actual boy names used for girls.

Two sides to the same coin?

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I’ve noticed a couple names that seem to be either/or names — meaning, if you use one for one child, it seems the other is really not usable for another. I don’t mean like Oliver and Olivia; I mean names that *are* different, but *just* too close. Like:

Theodore and Thaddeus

Evangeline and Genevieve (and Vivian/Vivienne)

Magdalene and Margaret

Theodore and Thaddeus both start with Th-, both have a d in the middle, and can both be nicknamed Ted/Teddy. Evangeline and Genevieve both have lots of v and n and soft g sounds happening, and both can be nicknamed Evie. Vivian/Vivienne strikes me as belonging to that group too, but Evangeline and Genevieve really seem two sides to the same coin to me. Magdalene and Margaret have the M and the g and can both be nicknamed Maggie.

But even as I think they’re too close to each other to be used for different-age siblings within a family, I could see them working quite nicely as twin names — a nice connection without being too matchy:

Theodore could be Theo and Thaddeus could be Taddy

Evangeline could be Evie and Genevieve could be Genny

Magdalene could be Lena or Maggie and Margaret could be Maggie or Greta

One hitch with this twin idea is that these names seem to represent slight but significant differences in taste. For example, it seems to me that people either prefer Theodore or Thaddeus — they don’t like them equally. Another pairing that makes this even more obvious to me is Sophia/Sophie and Sylvia/Sylvie — it seems to me that a person would prefer either the Sophi- names or the Sylvi- names, and whoever would choose the Sylvi- names likely wouldn’t be at all inclined to choose a Sophi- name, and vice versa.

Does this make sense? Do you get what my thought process is here or is it crazy? Can you think of other names like this?

Pearl is Marian!

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Remember when I posted about whether or not the name Pearl is Marian? I said, “I couldn’t find any title/appellation referring to Our Lady that included “pearl” anywhere (if any of you can prove me wrong, I’d be beyond delighted!).”

I’ve been proven wrong! And I’m as beyond delighted as I could possibly be! A reader noted in a recent email to me, “I think pearls have been associated with the Virgin Mary — they’re used in art work of the Madonna to symbolize her purity” (thanks Laura!), so I looked it up and lo — she’s right!

“Pearls, Unicorns, and Lilies: Symbols of Feminine Purity in the Renaissance” discussed this explicitly, with lots of good sources:

“The pearl was imbued with many of its implications in the context of paintings of the Madonna. Through representations of the Virgin Mary pearls came to be associated with faith and chastity. The pearls used to adorn the Virgin were not necessarily the pearls one would see in everyday life. These were larger, perfectly round, and flawlessly white with a beautiful luster, while normal pearls may have irregular shapes and lack the Virgin pearls’ snow-white sheen. The perfection of the pearls served to mirror the Christian perfection of the Virgin Mary.[4]

“Mary’s virginity is one of her most frequently discussed attributes. Her purity was highly contested, and supposedly confirmed by Pope Pius IX in a declaration of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. Even Mary’s own conception was highly debated, in regards to whether she was immaculately conceived by Saint Anne and Saint Joachim.[5] In short, Mary’s virginity and purity are her main attributes, and the items used to adorn her serve to further this message.”

Do you know what this means? If Pearl can be considered a Marian name, then Margaret can as well, since Margaret comes from margarita, the Latin word for pearl! That same post quoted above connects Mary and Margaret as well:

“In addition to the Virgin Mary, one saint in particular became associated with pearls. Saint Margaret—whose name is markedly similar to the Latin word for pearl,margarita—was known for her purity and chastity, as well as for being the saint invoked most frequently during childbirth … It is not a coincidence that the chaste saint is named for a pearl … Jacobus de Voragine described Saint Margaret as being “named after a highly refined white stone known as margarita, small and filled with virtues. Thus the blessed Margaret was white due to virginity”.[9]“

I mean, I suppose it seems somewhat of a stretch to suggest Pearl and Margaret could be considered Marian names, but I don’t know … if the intention is there — the intention to name a little girl after Mary and focusing on her purity as represented by pearls, which is also translated as Margaret — it doesn’t really seem that much different from naming a little girl after Mary and focusing on her purity as represented by the name Virginia, or Lily, or Rose.

What do you all think? Do you agree that Pearl and Margaret/Marguerite/Margarita/Mairead can be considered Marian, in light of this info about pearls?