Catholic baby names

Wait to see to name?

sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty

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?

Little Miss Stark!

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When I posted the consultation for Angela and Tim Stark back in February, Angela was really hoping to convince her husband of the name Augustina Christi for their baby-girl-on-the-way, or at least find a way to compromise as they searched for the right name. She wrote, “He shoots down anything different or unique and I shoot down anything that sounds too common.”

The baby has been born! And she has a beautiful name!!! Little Miss Stark was named:

Rosemary Anne

How lovely! Angela writes,

“Thank you so much for your assistance with the name, you were the one that got the wheels turning for us. The funny this is is that my husband ended up agreeing to Augustina Christi and I immediately shot down his recommendation of Rosemary. But for some reason my heart kept going back to Rosemary. It just seemed to suit her sweet personality. Rose is also my patron saint, Mary is just awesome, and saint Anne is just as wonderful. It just all seemed to fit for us. Plus we’ve decked out her whole wardrobe and nursery in roses! Thanks again for the awesome recommendations!”

What a great story! As I told Angela, stories like this always make me think of God whispering in the parents’ ear about the name the baby’s meant to have. Congratulations to the whole Stark Family!!!

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Rosemary Anne

Spotlight on: Gennaro

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My sister had a boy in her class when she was little named Gennaro. I knew nothing about his name but that I assumed it was Italian, and I loved it so much that I had it on my own preteen/teen name lists for years, despite the fact that I have not a drop of Italian blood (and, though I didn’t know it back then of course, neither does my husband).

I thought Gennaro was the coolest name — I’d never heard it before that little boy, and I hadn’t heard it since then — until March, when the blood of Naple’s patron saint, St. Januarius — aka St. Gennaro — liquefied in the presence of Pope Francis, the first time it had done so in the presence of a pope since Pope Pius IX in 1848.

What a miracle that was! Amazing! And I read about it in wonder, and rejoiced over it, and I thanked God that Pope Francis had been given such a gift … but always in the back of my mind was that swoony feeling I had every time I would carefully copy Gennaro onto my name lists (yes, I had several). And to know it’s a saint’s name!

I don’t know about you all, but Januarius has like 1/millionth of the coolness of Gennaro. Funny enough, despite my constant pretzeling of names to force feasible nicknames out of even the most un-nicknamable, I’ve never once thought of doing so for Gennaro. Off the top of my head, I can’t even think of one — certainly not Gen(n). Naro? Jar-o? (Ha!) Maybe Geo? That would probably be my favorite. But really, for me, it’s all about Gennaro.

What do you all think of Gennaro? Do you like it? Do you know anyone with the name? Is there something wrong with me that I was almost as interested in the Saint’s name as I was in the amazing once-in-two-centures miracle? (*Almost as*, I promise!)

Baby name consultant: Baby Girl B #4

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Sylvia (middle name Maria) of the blog Tales from the Mommy Trenches and her husband are expecting their fourth baby girl this month! Their last name is one syllable and starts with B, and their other girls are:

Gloria Ruth

Victoria Rose

Elena Wren

So beautiful! All three girls go by their middle names, and Sylvia wrote, “I am Cuban, so we like to have a Spanish/Latin flair in there, along with a Catholic name, of course. The other three are all called by “R” names, but we might need to forego that tradition for this one. Rita is currently my husband’s frontrunner.”

I had such fun coming up with name ideas for this family!

Okay, first off I love the theme of “R” middle names that the girls go by, and I would hate to see them have to move away from it, so the first thing I did was come up with possible R-ish names (you’ll see what I mean about the -ish):

Reina/Reyna — I love this one, as it means queen=Our Lady
Roma — like Rome, where the Pope is!
Ruby — I almost didn’t include this one, because of it’s closeness to Ruth, but I just love it
Risa — I’m a little rusty on my Spanish, but I think this means laughter, right?

Risa inspired Marisa, which I also quite liked as a middle name option — it’s a way of moving away from an R given name (which they’ve already started to do with Wren), but they can still call her Risa.

And Sylvia’s husband’s thought of Rita made me think of Margarita, which would also be a good middle name — a way of moving away from R while still allowing her to go by an R name (Rita). Choosing a middle name like Marisa or Margarita could open up M possibilities if they were to have more children, which would make a really nice seemingly seamless transition from the R middles of now to something different later.

As for first names, I was a little less sure. I love Spanish/Latin-type names, but I’m just not familiar enough with Cuban culture, for example, to know if what I’m suggesting would make someone of Cuban descent wrinkle their nose because it’s only an “old lady name” or a “trashy” name, etc. Do you know what I mean? So I’m sorry if this aren’t on point! But I liked each of them for this family, for the reasons I’ll explain (I usually shoot for three, but I couldn’t narrow it down any further than I did here):

(1) A Marian name
With the baby due in May — Mary’s month! — and Sylvia’s middle name being Maria, it made a lot of sense to me for them to consider a Marian name. I thought maybe Maria as a first name, or Carmela/Carmen, or Lilia. All would be beautiful first names with really nice spiritual and familial significance.

(2) Cristina
Mary- names made me think of Jesus names, and Cristina was one of the first names I saw when I was perusing a list of Latino/Latina names. I love all the Christ- names, and Cristina is particularly lovely to my eye.

(3) Sofia
I have no reason I liked this other than it felt right with the other girls! It is a beautiful name.

(4) A papal name
My favorite ways to name a little girl after one of our recent popes are Francisca or Francesca (for Pope Francis of course!) or Carolina/Karolina (for Pope John Paul II — birth name Karol) — I thought any of those would work nicely for this family. Joanna could also be for JP2, which I also quite like.

(5) Jacinda/Jacinta or Lucia
I was only going to suggest Jacinda or Jacinta here — Jacinta’s one of my very favorite names — and then it made me think of Lucia as well, which is also gorgeous.

(6) Ana
St. Anne is Mary’s mother, and she often pops up in my name thoughts. 🙂 I love Ana, and I thought a short name like it could offset a longer name like Margarita quite nicely if they decided to go that route.

So those are my ideas! What do you all think? Do any of them seem like they might hit the right note? What names would you suggest for Baby Girl B #4?

I love to do name consultations! If you’d like me to give your name dilemma a go, check out my Baby name consultant tab.

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?

Baby name consultant: Baby Girl Johnson

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Natalie and Christopher Johnson are expecting their third baby and second girl. Their other children are:

Fiona Emma

Arthur Christopher

*Swoon!*

Natalie writes,

“I’m due with a girl in [early May] and we cannot think of a good name! … Our last name is Johnson, so we like names that are not too popular, but also classic and not ‘made up’. We’ve been seriously considering Alice and Eleanor, but I feel like it’s weird to use two ‘A’ names (Arthur then Alice) and I think Eleanor is nice, but I’m not a huge fan of nicknames and I’m worried too many nicknames would come out … I would like to use a family name for her middle … either Olivia or Eugenie [Natalie’s middle name is Eugenie]. I would love some help!“

I love Natalie and Christopher’s taste! Regarding Alice and Eleanor, I can see why another ‘A’ name might seem less than ideal, especially being directly after an A-named sibling, and Eleanor certainly does have a bunch of nicknames, but they’re both really beautiful names — I don’t think they could go wrong with either one. However, I can always come up with suggestions! And though I always shoot to offer three, I came up with four for the Johnsons:

(1) Nora

Thought it can be a nickname for Eleanor, my top suggestion is to consider just Nora. It’s a full name in and of itself. It totally seems well matched to Fiona and Arthur in my opinion. I also love the idea of Nora Eugenie — not only does it flow nicely, and Eugenie’s Natalie’s middle name, but she’d also have Natalie’s initials, which is a sweet connection between Mom and daughter.

(2) Beatrice

You all know by now that I love looking for patterns and connections between already-born kids’ names and the names in consideration in the Baby Name Wizard book, and Beatrice emerged as similar to both Alice and Eleanor. I thought it was a great suggestion for the Johnsons, not only because of its similarity in style to the names they’re considering, but also because, as I recently found out from another of my trusty sources (Behind the Name), its origin/early usage is fairly religious (as Beatrix, which of course Beatrice is a form of): “Probably from Viatrix, a feminine form of the Late Latin name Viator whic meant ‘voyager, traveller’. It was common amongst early Christians, and the spelling was altered by association with Latin beatus ‘blessed.'” I thought that was pretty cool! But I would definitely recommend Olivia over Eugenie as the middle name — Beatrice Eugenie is too Royal Family (Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s girls). (Unless of course Natalie and Christopher like the royal connection — Beatrice Eugenie is quite beautiful together!)

(3) Molly

I know of a little Arthur who has a sister Molly, and I love it with Fiona as well. Molly is Marian too, being originally a nickname for Mary, and its Irish/Celtic feel is so spot on as a sister to Arthur and Fiona in my opinion. I’m loving Molly Olivia!

(4) Other awesome names that seem similar to the Johnson’s style and don’t nickname easily

I came across a bunch of other names, both in my head and my research, that I thought would work well for the Johnsons, so I thought I’d mention them just in case: Iris, Juliet, Clara, Lucy, Aine or Anya, Carys or Charis.

So those are my ideas! What do you all think? Have I hit the right note, or am I totally off? What name(s) would you suggest for the sister of Fiona and Arthur?

I love to do name consultations! If you’d like me to give your name dilemma a go, check out my Baby name consultant tab.

Birth announcement: Olive Faustina Mark!

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I make it a point not to post on Sundays, but I have such wonderful wonderful news, it seems most fitting for our day of worship, celebration, and rest!

Last night I asked you to pray for one of our readers who was having a baby right at that time — the baby has been born! Hallelujah!!

Little Olive Faustina Mark was born last night, named for St. Oliver Plunkett, St. Faustina, and St. Mark the Evangelist, on whose feast she was born. What wonderful names! What powerful patrons!

Congratulations to Olive’s whole family!!!

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.