Irish names

Birth announcement: Moira Elizabeth Charlotte!

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Happy Mother’s Day!! I gave you a little spiritual something yesterday, and today I have two (and possibly three!) birth announcements for you! What a wonderful day!! 😀 ❀ ❀ ❀

I posted a consultation for Genie at Barefoot Abbey back in January, and she’s let me know that her little girl has arrived and has been given the gooorgeous name … Moira Elizabeth Charlotte!

Genie writes,

“Our little Ladybird was born at home the evening of February 16th. At 7 pounds 12 ounces, she is a runt compared to her brothers. Deo Gratias!! Henry, our son born right before her, was 10 pounds!

Now onto the fun stuff!

Her name is Moira Elizabeth Charlotte.

As you can see, we were won over by the boys’ lobbying and did indeed name her after a spider. They were so excited for her arrival that it just felt right we should honor them in that regard. The patrons of St. JP2 and Bl. Charlotte of the Resurrection aren’t too bad either.

In the end (5 days after she was born!) we had the first name narrowed down to Moira, Genevieve, or Josephine. We had liked Moira with ImmaculĂ©e Clare, however the final theme we chose changed that. We decided to give each potential daughter a Marian name so we saved ImmaculĂ©e … We’re still running through nicknames and are open to suggestions, with the exception of ‘Mo’. Our sons call her variations from Ladybird to Mosy-Posy, since she was drawn from the water.”

I just love love love the name Moira, and I love Elizabeth and Charlotte as middle names for it — what a beautiful, meaningful combo!!

If any of you have ideas for nicknames for little Moira, please feel free to share! (My two ideas were Mori and Moira Beth.)

Congratulations to Genie and her husband and big brothers Malachi, Noah, Liam, and Henry, and happy birthday Baby Moira!!

Moira Elizabeth Charlotte and her brothers

Baby name consultant: Baby #4 to add more joie de vivre

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Thank you all for your patience and kind words and prayers last week! The wake, funeral, and burial for my mother-in-law all worked out so well and beautifully, may she rest in peace.

Though I’d said that I’d be able to finish up the consultations for those waiting for them, I didn’t end up being able to spend much time on the computer, so I’m a couple of days backed up. I should be able to catch up this week though, so if you’re waiting for a consultation or an email reply of any kind, don’t despair!

Now on to our regularly scheduled Monday consultation post!

Lisa, of the blog Joie de Vivre (hence my totally corny post title), and her husband are expecting their fourth baby, gender unknown! This wee babe will join older sisters:

Evangeline Grace (Evie)
Audrey Noelle
Heidi Josefina

And names they’ve talked about for girls include:

Isabel (“maybe more for a middle name?“)
Margaret (“husband really likes…I’m not quite there“)
Juliana (“has been a top choice every pregnancy…I’m ready to take it off the list, though, since the boss of my boss is named Heidi and my boss is named Julianne!“)
Mariette (“husband not on board“)
Faith or Hope
Jane
Teresita (“my confirmation saint is Ven. Teresita but my husband feels it’s too much of a nick name, womp, womp“)

For boys, Lisa says,

“My husband Tim and I have each had a strong devotion to St. Jude since before we met each other and considered that as our ‘front-runner’ for a boy’s name with the 1st pregnancy, however good friends of ours, who had a baby around the same time, also had Jude as their boy-name first choice and did have a boy *and* have the same last name we do, so we’ve sort nixed it but may consider it now that both families have more kids/ their Jude is older?“

Other names they’ve discussed/considered for boys include:

First names
Nicholas
Jude
Christopher
Nathaniel
Kolbe (“I LOVE- Tim says it evokes thoughts of Colby Jack cheese“)
Ethan

Middle names
Scott
Bonaventure
Frederick
Casimir

(“I know the last three are really wild cards but I kinda like that they’re unexpected, and the last two are the middle names of my grandpa’s that I would totally use as a middle name for a boy.”)

And names that can’t be used for various reasons include:

Ava
Anna
Charlotte
Clara
Rose
Sophia
Zelie
Kathryn
Therese
Michael
Charles
Seamus
Samuel
Daniel
Christian
Isaac
Andrew
Eleanor
Olivia
Leo

I really enjoyed working on this because I found that Lisa and Tim’s style wasn’t easy to pin down — I love a good name challenge!

Their girls’ names are each so lovely 
 and so different! I love each one. I almost always start a consultation by looking up the names that the parents like and have already used for their other children in the Baby Name Wizard book as it lists, for each entry, boy and girl names that are similar in terms of style/feel/popularity, and then I look for names that show up in more than one of those lists. It was so interesting to see what names would be found to be similar to more than one of Lisa and Tim’s girls’ names or the names on their list! I’ll explain more in my suggestions below.

I love Jude, and I love that both Lisa and her hubs have a devotion to St. Jude—how weird that they have friends with the exact same last name who also have a Jude! I agree that as there are more children and the ages are more spread out that it doesn’t matter as much as it might have once. It’s a great name.

As for the names she and/or her hubs like(s), Isabel, Faith, Hope, and Jane are all beautiful 
 I think they’re probably right to take Juliana off the list because of the Heidi/Julianne boss issue, but maybe not forever 
 Margaret and Mariette are so similar in appearance and beginning and ending sounds, it’s funny that Lisa loves one and Tim loves the other! And Teresita is beautiful — I wonder if they would consider Teresa with Teresita as a possible nickname? Especially since Tim already thinks Teresita sounds more nicknamey? Or maybe Tessa would be more their speed? I like them both with the other girls’ names, and I like trying to find a connection to Ven. Teresita for Lisa in a way that maybe her husband would be okay with.

Their boys’ names are very consistent stylistically! Nicholas, Christopher, and Nathaniel especially have a lot of the same names listed as style matches. I’ll discuss more in my suggestions below.

As for the middle name ideas, they’re all very handsome, and I was particularly struck by the combo Jude Frederick — I think it has such a great flow! BUT – I’m love love loving the idea of Frederick as a first name for them!!! I love that it’s long and sophisticated like Evangeline; it’s got a German feel like Heidi; and it’s really classic like Audrey and all three of them really. It’s got the great traditional nickname options of Fred, Freddie (so cute!), and Fritz, and I know a little Frederick who goes by Erick. I love it! Frederick Jude would be very handsome.

I love Kolbe too, great name and great saint! Colby Jack cheese is hilarious and such a bummer!

Okay, so I have a bunch of suggestions for Lisa and Tim:

Girl
(1) Magdalen(e)/Magdalyn or Madeleine
This was influenced at first by Margaret on their list, as I sometimes find that people who struggle with Margaret but love the nickname Maggie are open to considering Magdalen(e)/Magdalyn with the nickname Maggie. I love it! But as I was doing my research, I discovered that Madeleine is a style match for Evangeline and Isabel, and Madeleine is the French version of Magdalen(e), so I thought it definitely deserved a mention.

(2) Clairvaux
I know Clara’s on the list of unusable names, but Claire is a style match for Audrey and at first I dismissed it … but then when I was thinking about it some more — especially the style of Kolbe (saintly last name) — I wondered what they’d think of Clairvaux? Lindsay at My Child I Love You has a little Clairvaux, after St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and I believe they call her Clair sometimes.

(3) Victoria
Victoria is a style match for Juliana, Nicholas, and Nathaniel, and I love that it’s got that longer length like Evangeline. I love that it could be considered Marian (Our Lady of Victory), or a Jesus name (Victory!), and I love that it has a bunch of nickname options: Vicky, Vicka, Tori, Vee, Cora, Ria.

(4) Samantha
Samantha’s a style match for Nicholas, Christopher, and Nathaniel! I know Samuel isn’t usable, but maybe Samantha’s different enough?

(5) Camille or Camilla
Camilla is a style match for Juliana and Jude, and Camille for Hope. I really like it with their other girls, and I love the nickname Cammie.

Boy
(1) Luke or Lucas
Luke was all over the place for this family! Luke is a style match for Audrey, Jude, Ethan, and Faith, and Lucas matches up with Isabel. Wow! I’ve heard Jude described as the “Luke less traveled,” so I wasn’t surprised to see that it’s similar to a bunch of other names they like.

(2) Owen
Owen was also a big hit for them, being similar to Audrey, Isabel, Juliana, Ethan, and Faith. It’s a great name, and its patron is the amazing St. Nicholas Owen, a martyr who built hiding places for priests.

(3) Conrad
It’s funny, when I was first reading your email and saw Heidi, I immediately scribbled down Conrad, and then later discovered it’s a style match for Frederick! My husband and I considered Conrad for our youngest—I’ve always liked it.

(4) Bennett
Being that Kolbe is a saintly last name, I was trying to think of others from that category that Lisa and Tim might like (like my suggestion of Clairvaux above), and when I saw Bennett listed as a style match for Hope, I knew that was the one. Bennett is a medieval form of Benedict! So it’s got great saint cred, but it feels more like a last name (and of course is one, as in the Bennet sisters of Pride and Prejudice).

(5) Thaddeus or Theodore
Finally, I wondered if their love of St. Jude could transfer from the name Jude to the name Thaddeus? It’s long, like Evangeline, Christopher, and Nathaniel, and can take the nickname Thad, Tad/Taddy, and Ted/Teddy. Ted/Teddy made me think of Theodore too, which I suspect might be more their speed, and indeed it’s a style match for Frederick; they could also use the great nickname Theo.

And those are my ideas! What do you all think? What names would you suggest for a brother or sister to Evangeline/Evie, Audrey, and Heidi?

Birth announcement: Owen Michael!

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I posted a consultation for my brother and sister-in-law back in November, and I’m over-the-moon thrilled to announce that my baby nephew has been born and been given the amazing name of 
 Owen Michael!

A funny thing is that in my consultation, no mention was made of the name Owen, despite the fact that as long as I’ve known my SIL I’ve known that she loves that name (she herself was actually going to be named Owen if she had been a boy!)—she and my brother didn’t name their first son Owen (we all thought they would) and when it wasn’t included on the list of names she said they were considering for boy #2, I figured it had just kind of faded away, as so many once-favorite names have done for me and for so many of you, I’m sure.

But when little Owen was born and his name was announced, my immediate feeling was Of course! It feels so familiar to me to have a nephew named Owen! I really really love that the longtime favorite, which was thought to have slipped away, found its place in the end.

Congratulations to my brother and SIL and big brother Leo, and happy birthday to my sweet nephew, Baby Owen!!

owen_michael

Owen Michael

Baby name consultant: Hip Brit names for a fifth baby

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You guys! Today’s name consultation is for our very own Grace-with-a-small-g (red hair)! And I’m really excited about it, because she has bold taste so I was able to suggest some really fun names for her. She’s not currently pregnant but, like all of us, loves to think about names and would love some thoughts/ideas/suggestions for a possible Baby #5.

Her amazingly named kiddos are:

Elisabeth Grace
James Julian
Fiona Catherine
John Peter

She actually recently left a comment explaining how John got his name — so moving!

Grace writes,

“So, quite a few of these are family names … and of course three of them have New Testament first names but that’s not a requirement at all. No one goes by a nickname in our house … I guess I’d say we’re not nicknamers, but I might consider the right nickname if it came along.

I consider our naming style to be traditional, and I prefer names that have sort of an English flavor. As time goes by, I find that names with a more “hip” Brit feel appeal to me more and more.

I’ve had other name nerds say that because we used the “s” spelling for Elisabeth that we have a more continental style but I feel they didn’t have a good pulse on our taste, “s” spelling notwithstanding.

If we have another baby, we have middle names picked out, Xavier for a boy and the mouthful Catholicky Catholic Maria ThérÚse (possibly spelled without a space, not sure) for a girl!

We have girls’ names likely narrowed down to Edith or Iris, although I still like Aurora, too. Other girls’ names that have been serious contenders for us are Rosalind and Winifred.

For boys, I love, love Jasper, but not sure about a THIRD “J” boy! And I’m pretty wed to Xavier in the #2 spot, so Jasper Xavier is probably out. Another boy choice we like a lot is George. Henry feels like the “safe” choice for us but I’m not head over heels in love with it.”

I was really intrigued by this: “I’ve had other name nerds say that because we used the “s” spelling for Elisabeth that we have a more continental style but I feel they didn’t have a good pulse on our taste, “s” spelling notwithstanding,” and I really wanted to try to make sure I took it into account.

Grace and her husband have a bunch of rules about naming as well:

-Anything that ends with a “B” because I’m against elision with our last name
-Probably also wouldn’t use a name beginning with “B” for the same reason
-Despite my girls’ names listed up above, I don’t like the more common floral names (Lily, Rose, Violet), or anything that points to another language specifically (such as French, Italian, etc.—with the obvious exception of that middle name!)
-Names with a very strong glottal stop (such as Martin)
-Hugh/Hugo or anything else reminiscent of words for size
-Names beginning with the letter “L”
-We are not super into Old Testament names though we wouldn’t 100% rule them out

And a bunch of names that are on the no-go list for various reasons:

-Amelia
-Charlotte
-Helen
-Stella
-Josephine
-Frances
-Harriet
-Sophia
-Olivia
-Pearl
-Noah
-Felix
-Francis
-Paul
-Jude
-Maximilian
-Christopher
-William
-Simon
-Christopher

And I know she was worried about being too picky but, please. I LOVE picky! Challenging name dilemmas are my jam. 🙂

My very first thought was about their choice of middle names — I love them! Xavier and Maria ThĂ©rĂšse/MariaThĂ©rĂšse make any first name juuuuust fine since they’re so saintly and spectacular.

Edith, Iris, Aurora, Rosalind, and Winifred are all fabulous, they totally give me a good sense of the kinds of names Grace and her hubs like, as do Jasper (!), George, and Henry. It’s funny because when I was coming up with ideas, given that “continental” is not their style but rather “a more ‘hip’ Brit feel,” though I did use my trusty Baby Name Wizard book, I really felt like my approach with this was more of a “close my eyes and jump” gut-feeling kind of thing. We’ll see how I did!

Girl

(1) Zara
I’m starting with Zara because I’m thinking Grace won’t like it, but maybe she will? It’s 100% influenced by her interest in the monarchy (as she’s told me), and also Fiona’s name. Elisabeth, James, and John on their own are your basic, amazing, handsome, traditional sibling set. But you throw Fiona in there and pow! It’s like sprinkling glitter over the whole set. So I tried to let Fiona’s name influence me quite a bit. Without her I might lean more toward Thomas, Mary, Jane-type names; with Fiona, and Jasper too, I felt like having fun. Zara totally strikes me as that kind of name. And the letter Z?? To die for. But I’m still going to guess that it’s a little too un-traditional for Grace and her hubs 
 (I love love love Zara Maria ThĂ©rĂšse.)

(2) Gwendolyn
I love Gwendolyn and Gwen—the mom of Baby Beatrice, whose birth announcement I posted in January, has a Gwendolyn, as does DMNES’ Sara, and Haley Stewart has a Gwen, and I’ve really been feeling it recently. Never mind that it’s a style match for both Rosalind and Winifred! And also Bernadette and Rosemary, which I found surprising, in a good way. Gwendolyn Maria ThĂ©rĂšse has a gorgeous rhythm, what a name.

(3) Clementine
Clementine is very British to me. Am I right about that? I feel like it’s used more there than here. I love it—the full thing is so fun, and I actually love the song reference and the oranges (what a fun avatar for a little Clementine!), and I love the nickname Clemmie. So cute! And it’s a Year of Mercy name! Clementine Maria ThĂ©rĂšse. Yum.

(4) Olive
I know Grace likes Olive, so I was surprised to not see it on her list! It’s totally on my radar because of Our Lady of Olives, what a cool Marian connection. Olive Maria ThĂ©rĂšse is really hip to me (though we have established that I’m neither hip nor hipster so maybe I have it all wrong 😀 ).

(5) Georgiana
This is kind of a joke! It’s cracking me up that I put this in here! 😀 When I was in the midst of doing this for Grace I read a comment she left that she doesn’t care for the feminine variants of George and so my namey mind immediately perked up and thought Ah! Georgiana! It’s SO perfect for anyone who loves Pride and Prejudice and Colin Firth, as I know Grace does, and I loooove Georgiana anyway. So I’m keeping it on the list. 😀

(6) Juliet
I feel like I talk about Juliet a lot here on the blog, and I don’t ever remember Grace chiming in one way or the other, but it seems to me like a perfect bridge of sorts between Elisabeth and Fiona. It’s one of my very favorite names. I do realize Grace and her hubs have Julian represented already, and of course all the J names, but I thought I’d add it in anyway.

(7) Sadie, Daisy, Millie
Finally, the nickname names. So British right now! These are my favorite of those kinds of names for Grace and her hubs. Sadie is sweet, and it’s Jude Law’s ex-wife’s name, which is a really twisted but fun connection (I had Jude Law on the brain working on this because of Grace’s love of Iris, which is one of his daughter’s names. He also has a Rafferty, which I was tempted to put on the boy list, but I stopped myself. But if Grace likes it, I love it!). Though Sadie’s a traditional nick for Sarah, it can stand on its own, and Sarah doesn’t seem like Grace’s style at all.

Daisy is a huge deal for me right now, I am love love loving it, it’s definitely my current favorite of the Margaret names. I also watched The Great Gatsby recently and liked seeing Daisy on a grown woman.

Millie is influenced by two things: first, Millicent was listed as a match for Winifred, which made me think of my cousin Millicent who goes by Millie 
 and then Millie made me think of one of my Brit-pop-culture go-tos, the Shopaholic series, where the main character Becky and her amazingly named husband Luke Brandon named their baby Minnie. Just Minnie. So British. So I thought Grace and her hubs might like Millie?

Boys

(1) Owen
Owen is all St. Nicholas Owen, and I’m not sure it really fits in with Grace’s taste, but I think it could—St. Nicholas Owen was English and Fiona is Celtic and so: Owen! I love it, and I think Owen Xavier is fun because of the XO thing.

(2) Alistair, Alasdair
I love that the BNW says, “Alistair has had an uber-genteel image in the U.S., courtesy of longtime Masterpiece Theatre host Alistair Cooke. In Scotland it’s simply an everyday classic”—I love that combo of genteel and common! When I first saw this name in my research, I thought of the Hugh Grant movie About A Boy—if I remember correctly, the girl he liked introduced him as Ali, which I assume meant Alistair or a variant, so I feel like it has that Brit cachet they’re looking for. (Though I guess it has the same problem with Xavier that Jasper does.)

(3) Arthur or Albert
So I was thinking about the whole nickname-as-given-name thing that’s popular in England, and I thought of Alfie, which made me think of Archie, which reminded me that I’d seen somewhere recently that someone named their son Arthur and decided on Archie as a nickname, and as soon as I thought of Arthur I thought of Grace. Arthur!

Arthur and Archie also made me think of Albert and Albie, and St. Albert the Great’s one of my faves, and Albie’s super cute.

(4) Elliott
Elliott was included in the list for Aurora and as soon as I saw it I thought ooh! I love that it’s a diminutive of Elias, I love the sound and spelling (all forms), I love that it can be literary (T.S. Eliot), and I love it with Xavier. Elliott Xavier.is.awesome! I know it’s gotten some use by girls recently, but I still really like it for a boy.

(5) Edmund
I’m surprised Grace and her hubs don’t have Edmund on their list! It’s Narnia, it’s St. Edmund Campion, it’s got a little bit of a fusty-musty feel that I think they like (Edith). (In a good way!) It’s got really cute nicknames, but the full Edmund is my favorite I think. Edmund Xavier is fab.

(6) Louis or Lewis or Linus
Louis is de Montfort and Martin; Lewis is C.S. Either and both are such great connections! I personally love the nickname Louie, but the full Louis/Lewis is quite nice too. My boys go to school with a Louis and he’s such a good kid—respectful, friendly, cheerful—he’s really made me love it even more.

Linus is kind of a dark horse but I love it’s papal connection AND it’s a style match for Iris and Casper (which I consider to be nearly as good as Jasper in terms of determining style), as well as Flora, Felix, Hugo, and Beatrix, all of which I thought were decent markers of Grace’s style.

(7) Malcolm
Finally, Malcolm. This is mostly influenced by Fiona, but also by its meaning: “follower of St. Columba.” I love that! I know a little Malcolm, brother of Liam, who has effectively severed the Malcolm-Jamal Warner association for me, and Mac is one of the greatest nicknames in my opinion. They could even do Max if they wanted with the middle name. Malcolm Xavier is gorgeous.

Alright! Moment of truth! How did I do? What would you all suggest as a brother or sister to Elisabeth, James, Fiona, and John?

Spotlight on: Ryan

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We’re going to finish up Irish week with an Irish spotlight! ((irish twinkle eyes!!) (Thanks too for all the great ideas for Colleen yesterday!)

Not too long ago, Katrina of Hatch Prints (hand lettering and art shop on Etsy, goorrrgeous) and Cedars and Tiny Flowers (mama blog) fame posted about her oldest’s name, Ryan Donald (he who looks uncannily like my oldest nephew in several of his photos — Mom/sisters/sisters-in-law, do you agree?), and wrote,

“We didn’t put much emphasis on for having a saintly base to his name. We think our names get a passing grade as long as there is just one saint that can be connected. I have all the hope in the world that there will be a St. Ryan someday even with my ordinary mothering especially after reading this the other day. There happens to be a St. Donald, but it is kind of a downer because there is almost nothing known about him. I do wish we had a specific intercessor picked out to call upon for Ryan. Maybe Kate could do a spotlight on Ryan? Hint, hint.”

I totally picked up the hint (:) ) and thought it would be the perfect name to spotlight not only at the end of Irish week (because it’s Irish, just in case you weren’t sure), but also as we go into Holy Week, since I’m totally thinking that the best faithy connection for Ryan is Jesus Himself.

Ryan is said by behindthename and babynamesofireland (which only has an entry for Ryanne, “a female form of Ryan,” but not Ryan. Weird) to come from from ri (=king) and the diminutive –in, in essence meaning “little king,” which is, to me, all that tiny Babe in the manger. How cool. I might then consider it a possible Christmas name as well. I’m totally loving this idea!

Further digging shows there may indeed be a St. Ryan, under the name St. Rhian, and he is a mysterious (but so intriguing!) fellow. There’s a Welsh town called Llanrhian, where “llan” means “place of” (according to my Welsh expert friend Clare from Name News [a treasure trove of name info] — check out her comments about Welsh names and pronunciations on my post here, so cool!), and “There are lots of place names that are Llan + saint’s name, e.g. Llanfair (Mair = Mary), Llanbedr (Pedr = Peter).” so Llanrhian is named after someone named Rhian, and despite the fact that behindthename says Rhian is a Welsh female name meaning “maiden,” this site says about St. Rhian,

“Little is known of this saint, or of any other dedications to him. A few suggestions have been made:

  • The name may originally have been Rian, Rayn or Ryan, as early documents spelt it this way, and he could have been one of St David’s followers.

  • He could have been Rein, or Rhun, son of Brechan Brycheiniog, whose children have churches dedicated to them in various parts of Pembrokeshire

  • He could have been Reanus, Abbot of the 7th century

  • The name could have been descriptive – rian was an old Irish word for a trackway and Llanrhian might refer to the church on the trackway

  • It would recall some local chieftain who had embraced the Christian faith (rhi = king, an = little)

  • The Welsh word for maiden is rhiain, so the dedication might be to the Virgin Mary.”

(What’s that? A possible connection to Mother Mary?? ((heart eyes!!)) ) You can read more about Llanrhian and its founder/saint in this great document, and he even has a feast day (March 8).

So I’d say, if Katrina, or anyone else, wants a known patron for Ryan, I’d look to Jesus, and how awesome is that. But if a saint with the actual name is desired, St. Rhian’s the best we got, and not a terrible option at all.

What do you think of Ryan as a Jesus name? Do you have any other ideas for a patron saint for Ryan? Thanks to Katrina for the shout out and request!

 

Baby name consultant: Martin Lad #6

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I have been SO excited to showcase today’s mama and her beautiful family and wonderfully named children, and offer some ideas for her baby #7 – who’s also her sixth boy! Welcome Colleen of Martin Family Moments!

Colleen’s definitely a kindred spirit, her blog posts always make me feel like I’m chatting with my own best friends, especially the ones from college. In fact, she attended Franciscan University of Steubenville, which had been my #1 choice for a long time in high school until I decided I didn’t want to be that far from my family, especially my sisters, who were tiny when I started college. I was just musing today that if I’d gone to FUS, I would have known Colleen! She graduated a year behind me and I bet we would have been friends, not only for her personality that shines through in her writing, but also because she finds scapulars hanging out of boys’ shirts to be attractive (I thought I was the only one! My husband calls it “Catholic catnip” 😀 ). And she loves JP2. And she’s from the Northeast, so we totally would have bonded over being so far from home. And, the reason I scheduled her post for today, the fact that she loves Ireland and her Irishness (her name’s Colleen. I mean, come on) (I know she’ll love that all of my boys wore green to school today, with the cutest being my 4yo who’s wearing a shirt that says, “I drink me milk by the pint” and my almost-2yo who’s wearing a white t-shirt that has a green-tie-with-white-shamrocks printed on it 😀 ). Also, and I’m not even joking, one of my actual best friends from college—one of the ones that I think of every time I read Colleen’s posts because they’re just so familiar, just the way my friends and I are with each other—was honest-to-goodness hounding me to do a consultation for Colleen. So that settles it: Colleen would have been one of our best friends.

She’s got amazing taste in names too, which puts her right up there at the top of the list. 🙂 Check them out:

John-Paul
Andrew Pauric
Eamon Philip
Margaret Rosemary (Maggie)
Alexander Blaise (Xander)
Declan Kolbe

I mean, she totally had me at John-Paul. And one of the first boys I met when I was studying abroad in Ireland was John Paul. I also loved discovering, when reading the how&whys behind her naming, that Pauric was not actually the name of the uncle her Andrew Pauric was named after, but rather Padraig, and the Pauric spelling reveals one of the acceptable pronunciations of the name. So many Irishy things we’re learning today!

So when I was discussing with Colleen her and her hubs’ naming requirements and restrictions a few weeks ago, she said,

“I want really Irish names, but my husband likes saintly traditional names. I usually win out 🙂  we should know gender in two weeks, so you can just focus on one set of names. Current favorites are Elena Mae (husband approved) and Rowan Asher (husband unapproved)“

And then after they found out their new baby is a boy she gave me these additional difficulties,

“1) Not using our nephews or nieces names, which include – Maura, Gavin, Liam, Maeve, Rory, (Joseph) Finn, Joanna, Thomas, Lenora, Miriam, Josephine, Nadia, John, Caitlin, Brogan, PJ, Clare, Megan, Bridget, Katherine, Ryan, Grace, Lillian, Abigail, William.

2) My husband can almost always associate a name with a student he’s taught and that totally influences his opinion.  He’s been teaching for 13 years, so he has quite a list!  But there’s no way you would know any of these, so go with the flow 🙂
Our last name is Martin, so nothing like Martin or Martina.  And the initials probably shouldn’t be DAM or HAM or anything that could be embarrassing!  I love girl nicknames that are cute, ending in -ie or -y…we love the nicknames Annie, Lainey (which would be Elena’s), Ally.
Oh!  And we can’t reuse any of the names we were going to use for our past babies, which include – Brendan, Kayleigh, Emily, and Felicity.”
And then when I looked back on the naming post I linked to above and also this one, I discovered some more names that are on the no-go list:
Dean
Sean
Brian
Robert
Patrick
Jacob
As well as these names that they really like but can’t use for various reasons:
Maximilian
Benedict
Christian
Jonathan
Casey
Cory
Taylor
And names that Colleen likes:
Brennan
Kieran
Kane (Colleen’s mom’s maiden name)
Nolan
Niamh
Non-saint names — “because how are we going to ever create new saint names unless we name our kids non-saint names?“
And names that Phil likes:
Emily
Evelyn
Saints’ names
And also:
Re: the difficulties with others’ butchering of Eamon: “I think that might be the last time we use a mostly unrecognized Irish name again.”

And finally, the most recent update:

“Since we’ve found out it’s a boy, we’ve been leaning towards names with a strong “n” sound…after realizing that we have a JohN-Paul, ANdrew, EamoN, XaNder, and DeclaN.

Top contenders are Bennet(t), Evan, Rowan/Ronan.
I would still love a cute nickname for whatever name he has (like Benny for Bennett) and I have been so good at trying to keep an open mind until I read your post 🙂 “

Okay! Whew! I think I got everything in there and I’m pretty sure none of my ideas violates any of the rules but there’s certainly a chance I missed something so if Colleen reads any of my ideas and thinks, “She’s terrible at this, I *told* her such-and-such wouldn’t work!” I probably won’t be too surprise.

I do need to point out though that Colleen related a story of having decided on Casey for one of her older boys, only to have both her and her husband meet girls named Casey, which crossed the name off the boy list (she says, “I’d rather give a unisex name to a girl than a boy“), so I know she’ll want to know that Rowan is actually included in the Androgynous list in the Baby Name Wizard, and that the one I’m most familiar with (not knowing any in real life) is Brooke Shields’ daughter Rowan. So I’m definitely in the Ronan camp for Baby Martin.

Speaking of the Baby Name Wizard, I just want to remind you all, as I’m sure you already remember, that I almost always start a consultation by looking up the names the parents used and like because the BNW lists, for each entry, boy and girl names that match in terms of style/feel/popularity. It’s such a useful tool, even for only pointing me in the right direction, you know? So when I say “such-and-such is a style match for such-and-such,” you know I’m referring to my trusty BNW.

And now, without any further ado (I’m really good at “further ado” and I often have to cut myself off!), here are my ideas/suggestions:

(1) Biblical: Benjamin

John, Paul, Andrew, Philip, and Alexander are all biblical names, so methinks they might be open to considering some others. Benjamin is a style match for both Andrew and Alexander, and it’s kind of like the Benedict they don’t feel they can use (because “we already have one son named after a Pope”) and the Bennett they’re considering AND it has the “strong ‘n'” sound all their other boys have. Also the awesome nickname possibility of Ben(ny).

(2) Irish: Cormac, Cashel, Owen, Connor, Miles

Ooh I have so many ideas for this category! Cormac is the first — saintly and Irish, and with the fabulous nickname Mac.

Cashel is offbeat and unusual but I love it so much for its meaning — “The Rock of Cashel was the traditional seat of the kings of Munster for several hundred years prior to the Norman invasion” and it’s “reputed to be the site of the conversion of the King of Munster by St. Patrick in the 5th century” — and for its possible nickname of Cash. Swoon!!!

Owen has the strong N and not only is it Irish but it can have the awesome patron saint of one of my very favorites, St. Nicholas Owen. (No good nickname options though.)

Connor is totally one of those “cute boy” names, in my opinion — handsome and Irish and so cool. And it’s got the N’s! Nicknames are harder for Connor — there’s the old-school Connie, like Connie Mack, but I don’t know too many parents these days who would be okay with that.

And Miles — I have to suggest Miles!!! The old Irish name Maolmhuire (“devotee of Mary”) is anglicized as Miles or Myles. A Marian boy’s name is so to die for!! Being only one syllable (or you could make it two, depending on your dialect) it doesn’t need a nickname, but Milo’s a cute option (even though it doesn’t make it any shorter).

(3) Biblical+Irish: Daniel, Gabriel

Finally, two names really stuck out at me as being particularly Irish while still being biblical. The first is Daniel. You canNOT get more Irish than Danny Boy. Oh Danny Boy! With N’s!

Can any Irish girl listen to that song and NOT decide then and there to name her boy Danny?!

The second is Gabriel, which is certainly not as Irish as Daniel, but is used enough — actor Gabriel Byrne is a great example, as is super duper famous longtime Irish TV personality Gay Byrne (whose given name is Gabriel Mary Byrne. I just die. ❀ I wrote about the Irish Gabriels here).

And Kane is my hearty suggestion for a middle name for almost all of these — it’s a family name and it sounds ah-MAZ-ing to me with all of my ideas, even the ones that start with a K sound. Love love love.

And those are my ideas for Colleen and Phil! What do you all think? What other names would you suggest for a wee lad whose big sibs are John-Paul, Andrew, Eamon, Maggie, Xander, and Declan?

 

Gettin’ my Irish on

sanctanomina Resources and recommendations , , ,

It’s St. Paddy’s Eve, y’all! ❀ 😀 ❀

I’m really excited to be speaking tonight at a dinner for Irish Catholic women on the usage of the name of Mary by the Irish in Ireland and America — I’ll be sharing a little history, a little language, and some really cool names (like my fave Miles that I’m always pushing on all of you!), and the comments you all left on this post were tremendously helpful! Go raibh maith agat! (“Thank you” in Irish!)

One of my college roommates sent me this article, which I thought was pretty great: Irish Names: Here are 17 unusual ones to give your baby by Nameberry cofounder Pamela Redmond Satran. Some of my personal faves are on there, like Emer (one of the co-founders of the student pro-life group at the university I attended in Ireland was Emer, so I have all good feelings for the name) and Nuala and Senan, and I’ve been crushing on recently on Fia/Fiadh. (Kind of reminds me of Fiat … hmmm …)

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve also got a special treat lined up tomorrow — a bonus consultation for an Irish name for the seventh baby/sixth boy of this mama colleen (who’s an actual Mama Colleen)! I can’t wait! I’m also totally cracking up over the in-utero nickname she says they have for the Little Mister:

“Enda Dunn. It’s an Irish name that means “Mom and Dad are really, really tired.” 🙂 “

Finally, I think you’ll probably all enjoy this article: Staunchly defending second-hand blarney. It’s an Irish Times piece from 2001, when I was the New York Rose in the Rose of Tralee Festival in Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland, and while it doesn’t paint the greatest picture of the Festival (the author was definitely snarky before snarky was even a word), it says quite nice things about me. 🙂 I was doing some paperwork this morning and came across it and it made me laugh out loud. 😀 (I’ve actually tried to figure out who the author was, so I can thank him — he says some of the nicest things about me anyone’s ever said. Am I just missing his name? Can anyone help me out?)

If you’re finding all this greeny green tiresome already, I apologize, because I’m kind of a handful about all this. 😀 But if you love all things Irish as I do, be sure to look back over my old posts tagged “Irish names” and I ‘ll even repost this video, because I love it:

And for all of you who love to read to your little ones, check out Finney the Leprechaun and his faith-filled story-rhymes (the drawing of the church in this post may or may not have been drawn by my oldest boy ((proud mama face)) ).

That’s all I have for now, but I’m not promising I won’t be back again later today with more! We’ll see! 😉

Pope told parents to name their daughters after Mary?

sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty , ,

Whew! My head is spinning after yesterday’s post! You all had so many good thoughts! I do want to let you know that my computer (or WordPress?) has been acting up recently and I can’t always interact with the comments the way I want to — sometimes I’m not able to “like” them in the notifications, sometimes I miss them completely … just this morning I started writing down all the posts that had new comments so I could go back to each one to like all the comments (since the notifications thing wasn’t working) and decided I just can’t — it would take me all morning! But I love each one of your comments, I love all the feedback, I love that this blog is exactly what I hoped it would be when I started it — a searchable database of Catholic name info. You’re all the best! ❀

I also have some more thoughts on yesterday’s post, but I think I need to sit with it all for a while more and organize my thoughts. Stay tuned!

So this is the post I was going to post yesterday before I got sidetracked by Abby’s post. I was doing some name research the other day (you don’t say) ( 😉 ), chatting with some family members about family names, and one of my cousins said she thought, in reference to the many Marys in our family of a certain age (mostly born in the 40s, though there are a bunch of older relatives named Mary as well), that the Pope had told parents to name their daughters after Mary.

You know me, I was immediately like a prairie dog up on my hind legs, totally alert. How interesting! I’d never heard of such a thing — and I assume whatever truth there is to it, if any, is surely not an official statement but perhaps an informal comment, or perhaps something like, “Mary is a wonderful role model for your daughters” which got mistranslated into, “Name your daughters after Mary.” So I took to the internet, searching mostly for anything similar attributed to Pope Pius XII, who was Pope right when the women we were talking about were born and named (1939-1958), and who was pretty Marian, what with his Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and his definition of the dogma of the Assumption, but wasn’t able to find anything. My history-teacher friend and suggested maybe it was the local bishop and not the Pope, so I looked for info about him — also very devoted to Our Lady — but couldn’t find anything like what I was looking for. A priest friend suggested maybe Pope Benedict XV, who was Pope from 1914 to 1922 and who both instituted the old Code of Canon Law (1917), which said that Catholic parents must give their babies saints’ names and if a baby didn’t have a saint’s name the priest was to give one at baptism, and also authorized the Feast of Mary, Mediatrix of all Graces, so he was namey *and* Marian, and I could see that being the source of this belief. But again, I wasn’t able to find anything official (I did find this interesting article while searching, which talks about naming requirements and practices among different groups, including Catholics. It’s not accurate Catholic-wise, but an interesting read nonetheless).

I also found this article, which says that “For very many years the Catholic Church in Ireland would not baptise a child unless the name chosen was that of a saint or, in the case of a girl, was a version of Mary,” but it doesn’t cite any official source — I’m thinking like any kind of Church documents or regulations that were actually written down and not just unwritten local custom. (Written local custom would be fine!)

Have any of you heard this idea before? Can you shed any light on all this?

Spotlight on: Moira

sanctanomina Spotlight , ,

Whew! Moira caused a little bit of a ruckus yesterday in the comments! Have any of the rest of you heard an Irish person tell you Moira is “made up” or “not a real Irish name”?

So I consulted my trusty sources, and this is what they say:

Withycombe (3rd edition: 1977; originally published 1945)
“apparently an attempt at rendering phonetically Maire, the Irish form of Mary. Not uncommon in England now.”

Hanks, Hardcastle, Hodges (2nd edition: 2006; first published 1990)
“Anglicized form of Irish MĂĄire, now used throughout the English-speaking world.” (Entry on MĂĄire: “From Old French Marie … Moira (Anglicized form)“)

Rosenkrantz and Satran in Beyond Shannon and Sean: An Enlightened Guide to Irish baby naming (1992)
“Sometimes particular individuals were responsible for introducing — or popularizing — their Irish monikers. The Names who carried these names include: … Moira Shearer,” who was an “internationally renowned British ballet dancer and actress,” born in Scotland in 1926.

Behind the Name
“Anglicized form of MÁIRE. It also coincides with Greek ΜοÎčρα (Moira) meaning “fate, destiny”, the singular of ΜοÎčραÎč, the Greek name for the Fates. They were the three female personifications of destiny in Greek mythology.” (The pronunciation they give for MĂĄire is “MOY-ra”)

Baby Name Wizard site, from the comments for the Moira entry:

  • “First off, it’s pronounced MOR-a not MOyRAH. Sources: it’s my name. It’s the real, original correct Celtic pronunciation. It aquired the moyrah pronunciation when it was translated into English. I took several Irish dance classes when I was younger, and there were 3 other Moiras In it, all with the correct spelling also and correct pronunciation too. When pronounced Moyrah, in my opinion, it loses it’s beauty and it sounds like an old Jewish woman with nasal problems is trying to pronounce it, unsuccessfully”
  • “We named our daughter Moira because we wanted a derivation of Mary that wasn’t too common and we love Gaelic names. I had heard the name before (always pronounced MOY-rah)“

Abby at Appellation Mountain
“Mary became MĂĄire among Irish families, probably via the French Marie.  Like many an Irish name, there’s debate over pronunciation.  I’ve come across MOY yah, MAW yah, MAW rah, MY rah, and even MAY ree, though I think that last one is probably a novel American interpretation.  In any case, pronunciation seems to have varied over place and time.

She was Anglicized as Moira, and is usually pronounced phonetically – MOY rah.  Except that sometimes she was Maura instead, with a different sound … Occasionally you’ll meet a Moira who pronounces it more like Maura 
 making the whole thing complicated.

But wait – there’s more.  In Ancient Greek mythology, the Three Fates were known as the Moirai.  Moira means portion or part, but is also related to the word moros – fate, and links to our word merit.  You could argue that Moira implies a proper share, a sense of order in the universe, that one gets what one deserves – making her something of a virtue name, a sister to Destiny … Between associations with the Virgin Mary and the classical idea of man’s fate, that’s quite a lot of meaning for a two-syllable name.”; from the comments: “Irish singer Enya has an older sister who also sings. Her name is Maire Brennan, and she apparently pronounces her first name MOY-yah. Actually, I believe in her latest releases she’s used an Anglicised phonetic spelling of her name”

Interestingly, I discovered that the actress Moira Kelly, born 1968, is the daughter of Irish immigrants. I put dates where I could (like the birth dates of Moira Shearer and Moira Kelly, and the publication dates of the books) to see if there was historical evidence of its use rather than a modern innovation, because it seems to me when people talk about a name being “made up,” they mean a new name they’ve never heard before. The funny thing is that so many old, established, traditional names were “made up” at one point! Consider this conversation on one of the Baby Name Wizard discussion boards:

QUESTION
Ceilidh versus Cailey
I love the Gaelic spelling of Ceilidh but I hate how trendy Kaylee and every other spelling is. Do you like Ceilidh or Cailey, however?

RESPONSES (a sampling)

  • “When you say Ceilidh are you talking about the Gaelic folk music festivals?”
  • “the Gaelic spelling is a word for a type of party, not a name. The word happens to sound the same as Kaylee”
  • “I do know how to say ceilidh, but as far as I know it’s not a name. It strikes me as similar to naming a child Potluck or Rave” (that one made me laugh!) 😀
  • “As a Scottish person, though not a Gaelic speaker, I can tell you definitively that ceilidh is not a name, it’s a word for a traditional party. I know it sounds like the name Kaylee but it’s not a name”
  • “The Gaelic word ceilidh just happens to sound the same as Kaylee. That doesn’t make it a name. This is true the other way, too: I’ve met people who turn up their noses at Kayleigh/Kaylee/etc. because “that’s a type of party”, but they’re wrong: the name isn’t Gaelic, it just happens to sound like it.”

But then:

  • “I think Ceilidh, like the dance party, is a great name, specifically because it’s an Irish word that sounds like a familiar name. Just because it isn’t used much as a personal name doesn’t mean that it can’t be — I suppose Rose/Daisy/Pearl/Noel/Colleen/any-other-noun-turned-name started out that way as well?

    I say “isn’t used much” rather than “isn’t used” because I do know a little girl with this name. Her mother spelled it differently, in order to make it clearer to Americans — I think she used the spelling Kaeli — but her intention was to give her daughter the Irish word ceilidh as a name.”

  • “I think “you were named for a dance party!” would be a very satisfying name origin story that would help a little Kaylee/Kaeli/whatever spelling feel distinctive from the other Kayleighs/etc”
  • “I probably wouldn’t choose Ceilidh because the pronounciation isn’t clear to me, but I agree, I don’t see why it cannot be used as a name. There are plenty of names that are essentially non-English words.”

I’ve also seen Irish people fuss about Colleen, Erin, and Tara, because those names are more familiar to them as words rather than names. Perhaps like our Tiber, Vesper, Rosary? This also reminds me of the list of invented literary names that have become so commonplace that many (most?) of us don’t realize they came straight out of an author’s head. Like:

  • Imogen — a particularly good example for our purposes here, since Imogen appears to be a mistranscription of the princess Innogen in Shakespeare’s Cymebeline, where Innogen “is probably derived from Gaelic inghean meaning ‘maiden.'” Not too much different from Colleen, which is “from the Irish word cailĂ­n meaning ‘girl.'”
  • Miranda — “Derived from Latin mirandus meaning “admirable, wonderful”. The name was created by Shakespeare for the heroine in his play ‘The Tempest’ (1611). It did not become a common English given name until the 20th century”
  • Vanessa — “Invented by author Jonathan Swift for his poem ‘Cadenus and Vanessa’ (1726). He arrived at it by rearranging the initial syllables of the first name and surname of Esther Vanhomrigh, his close friend”

But in all of this, it’s just a matter of unfamiliarity — if a person from Ireland, who’s only familiar with the noun ceilidh, meets someone named Ceilidh, I can see why their first reaction is, “That’s not a name!” Similar to the Rave/Potluck comment above.

But that’s not the case with Moira — it’s got a good history of use among those who are Irish and Scottish, even if some might disagree about whether it’s an appropriate anglicization of MĂĄire or not, and disagree on pronunciation as well; not only that, but I would say its use is almost exclusively as “an Irish form of Mary,” the connection to the Greek word for the Fates notwithstanding. Truly, I think Moira is absolutely legitimate as an Irish Marian name. (There’s also a place named Moira — a town in Co. Down (Northern Ireland) — so from that perspective it could be considered similar to Bethany, BelĂ©n, Roma, and even Clare (Co. Clare), if you preferred.)

Would you be intimidated against using Moira if someone from Ireland told you it was “made up” or “not a real Irish name”? Has this post helped clarify that it absolutely can be considered an Irish Marian name, or do you disagree with my conclusion? (Feel free to be honest! And if you know any more about Moira, please share!)

 

Baby name consultant: Little Miss after 5 boys, and rethinking the planned name

sanctanomina Baby name consultant , , , ,

Genie, who blogs at Barefoot Abbey, and her husband are expecting their first girl after five boys! She writes,

“Our moniker muddle is that after 5 boys we are expecting a girl (in the middle of February) and are now rethinking the previously intended girl name philosophy from our courtship.

Being Anglo/celtophiles and my husband’s pride in his Scotch-Irish heritage have been factors in our sons’ names. We also try to use repetitive or similar sounds in each child’s name as a whole. For girls, our original philosophy was for our first daughter to have a Mary inspired name and then saint names (many my patronesses) for any subsequent daughters.

We have had “Moira Immaculee Clare” as our first girl name for 10 years. [Clare is a family name] … I like Therese in that spot as well.

We know about 5 Moiras over the age of 5 … Also concern was voiced that Moira did not match the other future girl names on our list.”

It’s an interesting dilemma, having had the same name chosen for ten years and five other babies, only to be unsure when it actually comes time to use it!

Genie shared the other girl names on their list, so we could see if it’s true that Moira doesn’t match the other names:

Moira Immaculee Clare
‱ Moira – Irish/ Scottish variant of Mary, we like the possible nickname of Molly – we just aren’t “Mo” people.
‱ Immaculee – obviously Marian name, we love the sound but don’t think it will work for us as a first name, coincidentally Ladybird’s (our baby) due date is near the feast of OL of Lourdes.
‱ Clare – family name, saint

Josephine Felicity Marie – “Josie/Jojo”
‱ Josephine – for Bl. Josephine Leroux martyr of the French Revolution.
‱ Felicity – love the meaning of the name and Ss. Felicity & Perpetua
‱ Marie – Marian

Genevieve Imelda Faith “Gigi”
‱ Genevieve – patroness, my baptismal but not legal name
‱ Imelda – patroness, confirmation saint at my reception into the Church from Anglicanism in ’11
‱ Faith – meaning

Margaret Gemma Therese – “Meg” (Little Women)
‱Margaret – patroness, Ss. Margaret Clitherow & Margaret of Scotland, my 3rd baptismal name.
‱Gemma – love the modern saint’s story
‱ Therese – love the simplicity of her little way.

Lucy Elinor Hope
‱ Lucy – St. Lucy day is one of our family’s favorites in Advent, Lucia of Fatima, C. S. Lewis, Lucy Maud Montgomery
‱ Elinor – my husband was born in the Feast of St. Helena, Austen spelling (Sense & Sensibility)
‱ Hope – meaning

Emmelia Magdalene Rose – “Emmie/Mila”
‱ Emmelia – patroness, mother of saints
‱ Magdalene – love that she was the first follower to see Jesus after the Resurrection, first son was due on Good Friday and was almost “Moira Magdalene Clare”
‱ Rose – Marian

Elizabeth Azelie Jane – “Eliza Jane” (Little House)
‱ Elizabeth – patroness, St. Elizabeth of Hungry, my legal middle name
‱ Azelie – patroness
‱ Jane – my husband’s grandmother & aunt, Jane Eyre

Beatrix Evangeline Hope/Anne – “Beasy”
‱ Beatrix – St. Beatrix of Nazareth
‱ Evangeline – love the sound of this, I want to say there is an obscure connection to Mary here?
‱ Hope – meaning
‱ Anne – St. Anne (Mary’s mom) & St. Anna Maria Taigi, Green Gables spelling

Aren’t they each gorgeous? I love all the meaning behind each one! The faith significance, the literary references, the nicknames (Beasy!) — wonderful job all around!

Some further info about girl names:

“Our sons are pushing for Charlotte but that’s most likely due to their love of Charlotte’s Web, and not the martyr of Compiegne. Lol!

The other philosophy we are currently considering is forgoing Moira or a Marian first name. For that theme, we would go straight into girl saint names but have a Mary connection in each daughter’s name. Unfortunately, we’re having a hard time being that creative with Marian derivatives.”

Genie’s little Miss will be joining the following well-named brothers:

Malachi Benedict Aquinas
‱ Malachi – first canonized saint of Ireland, “Carrots” is one of his nicknames
‱ Benedict – St. Benedict was a big part of our pre-marriage prep, Pope Benedict XVI
‱ Aquinas – Our courtship began on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

Noah Oliver Francis
‱ Noah – my husband liked the sound & justified it as being close to the Gaelic word for saint
‱ Oliver – last canonized saint of Ireland, he usually goes by “Noah Oliver” or the Gaelic pronounced “Ollibear”
‱ Francis – the patron of the parish we’d attended all our marriage. He took me there after the pub on our first date.

Liam Michael Damien
‱ Liam – Bl. Liam Tirry one of the 17 Irish martyrs, his nickname is the Scottish term of endearment “Ducky”
‱ Michael – St. Michael is one of my husband’s patrons along with St. Thomas Becket & St. John the Baptist.
‱ Damien – St. Damien of Molokai, my dad used to go build for the remainder of his colony.

Aelred Dominic John (this is the son we lost)
‱ Aelred – St. Aelred the English St. Bernard, Spiritual Friendship author, one of our sons’ favorite lullabies is Robert Burns’ “A Red Red Rose” – he was due in June. http://youtu.be/y8R1kmcoQZk
‱ Dominic – St. Dominic, OL of the Rosary, meaning (belonging to God)
‱ John – my husband’s brother (has all daughters), patron, meaning (God is gracious)

Henry Andrew James
‱ Henry – St. Henry Walpole & Bl. John Henry Newman
‱ Andrew – St. Andrew of Scotland, my husband’s middle name, he was conceived the day after praying the St. Andrew Christmas Novena
‱ James – St. James the Great, my grandfather’s name, his nickname is “Camino” (he’s the path God chose for our family)

And the names they’d considered if this baby had been a boy:

George Ignatius Eliot
Charles/Maximilian Joseph Louis

Just sighs of happiness all around! Great great names.

So, to start, I love Moira Immaculee Clare, a really lovely name. I’m so surprised that Genie knows multiple Moiras! I don’t think I’ve ever met any in real life, being more familiar with Maura, which is my first suggestion — perhaps they’d consider changing to Maura Immaculee Clare? I know a little Maura who goes by Molly. Maybe that would be different enough to distinguish from the other little Moiras they know, but close enough to still feel like that got to use their beloved name? Secondly, when it comes to Irish and Scottish names, I tend to not worry about, for example, sisters Moira and Josephine not matching in style — especially in Ireland, which is what I’m more familiar with, families often have a mix of super-Irish names and others, usually saints. I know a family with a Kevin, Michael, and Dermot, for example, and another with Mary and Padraic, and another with Robert and Maeve. So I think it’s totally fine.

I know Mary isn’t as exciting as Moira, but I wondered what they’d think of that? Mary Immaculee Clare is wonderful, and Molly can still be used as a nickname. Or maybe Molly Immaculee Clare? My sister is just Molly and my sister-in-law is Molly and I grew up with multiple girls named Molly/Mollie — just that, not as a nickname for Mary or another variant. Maria is also quite well used in the British Isles/Ireland (you could even pronounce it like Mariah if you wanted to be really British and confuse everyone! 😀 I have a friend who gave her daughter the middle name Maria, with Maria pronounced Mariah). Or Mariah itself? I’ve always loved it.

I posted the other day about the idea of reserving names for future babies and something one of the commenters said that has really stuck with me — and I think might be helpful here — is “which name would I be sadder not to use?” In that example, a family had chosen Felicity for a girl, only to discover they were expecting a boy, and someone had suggested Felix, which would mean they couldn’t/wouldn’t use Felicity if they ever had a girl. Would they be sadder to never get to use Felicity? For Genie, would she and her hubs be sadder/would it bother them more to cross Moira off their list, or to use a name that might bother another family and potentially be seen as not fitting with future sisters?

Regarding Evangeline as having an obscure connection to Mary, I don’t know of any official (though obscure) connections, but I think one could make a case for it, since Evangeline means “good news” and Mary was the first hearer and the bearer of Good News — perhaps she could even be thought of as the First Evangelist? I’ve often said that intention matters the most, more than a name’s actual meaning etc., so if one’s intention is to honor Mary with Evangeline and you feel you have a good way of making it all connect, I say go for it!

I didn’t know about the martyr of Compiegne, Sr. Charlotte of the Resurrection! I did a post a while ago on patrons for Caroline/Charlotte, and my heaviest focus was on the male saints (JP2, Borromeo, etc.) — I’ll have to add this new Charlotte! It’s actually a really strong style match for a lot of the names Genie and her hubs like, and with the new baby princess being Charlotte, they’ve got a great Anglophile connection there!

As for Marian derivatives, there are so many! They’ve done a great job already with Moira, Immaculee, Marie, Hope (OL of Hope), and Rose. Others that might interest them include Grace; Marian (always makes me think of Maid Marian, not a bad association!); Maureen/Mairenn; Miriam; Perpetua; Assumpta and Carmel, both of which are used in Ireland; Regina and Caeli, as well as some others I include below in my “official” suggestions.

So now, onto those suggestions! Not that I think they really need any, their list is amazing! But I thought these might strike the right notes:

(1) Annabel
Given Genie’s husband’s love of all things Scottish and her hope for a Marian name, Annabel was one of my very first thoughts for them! Behind the Name says Annabel is a “Variant of AMABEL influenced by the name ANNA. This name appears to have arisen in Scotland in the Middle Ages” 
 Amabel is a “Medieval feminine form of AMABILIS,” who was a fifth century (male) saint, but Amabilis is a “Late Latin name meaning “lovable”” — the very name used in the Marian title Mater Amabilis — Mother Most Amiable (where amiable=lovable). How great is that?? A pretty specifically Scottish Marian name! I love Annabel (could also spell it Annabelle), mostly for its Marian meaning, but also because visually it connects to St. Anne, one of my personal patrons and of course the patroness of this blog.

(2) Eva or Eve
I was thinking of Aoife for them, and I do love it, but I suspect they’d want something a little easier to work with, and Genie’s idea of Evangeline made me think of it. Eva can be pronounced EE-va or AY-va and goes back to Mary as the New Eve. They could also consider just Eve — I had a convo on the blog recently with a mom who was considering Eve, for Mary, but worried it wasn’t Marian enough and asked for any ideas for a middle that would help remedy that … I suggested Eve Immaculata, which just has a beautiful, meaningful ring to me, and the mom responded that she also really liked Immaculee, and given that Immaculee already features prominently in Genie’s girl list, it seems a great idea. They might also want to consider Evangeline for a first name?

(3) Rosemary/Rosemarie, Rosary
I had a friend in Ireland years ago named Rosemarie and I loved it. I also love Rosemary. Nicknames for both can include Romy or Rory/Rorie, which are the kinds of nicknames I love — a little offbeat, but with a great, solid, traditional given name. And Rosie/Rosey are of course really great nicknames.

A reader on the blog actually named her daughter Rosary! I love love love it! That family had some Irish names for their other kids, so I thought Genie might be interested in checking them out. Little Rosary herself has the full name of Rosary Brigid Elise, and her mom recently said that she often calls her Rose.

(4) Lourdes
One of the great things about the Irish (and I know I’m focusing a lot on the Irish, but I’m just not as familiar with Scotland — I hope my thoughts are transferable!) is that they use holy names of all kinds, ethnicities, languages, etc. I know of Irish girls named Jacinta and Philomena and Gemma — especially in the old days I think, they just used a lot of names of our faith, no matter where they came from. So Lourdes (as with Carmel above) strikes me as just the kind of name they might use, if they wanted to use a Marian name. I’ve written a bit about the family at the blog My Child I Love You, because the parents have scrumptious taste in names, and their youngest is Lourdes Marie Talbot. I could see Lulu and Lola working as nicknames for Lourdes, and I even think Lucy could work! Especially with a middle name like Cecilia — Lourdes Cecilia has all the sounds of Lucy. And Genie’s baby is actually due right around the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes! (The Lourdes I mentioned above was born on that same feast day!)

(5) Stella
Finally, Stella. It’s one of my favorites — I feel like I suggest it to everyone! It’s from the Marian title Stella Maris — Star of the Sea. Stella on its own is a lovely nod to Our Lady, or perhaps they’d prefer to use Stella (first name) with Maris (middle name). Or, Haley from Carrots for Michaelmas has a daughter Gwen with the middle name Stellamaris (all one word). And a reader of my blog named her daughter Maristella, which is a totally legitimate variant of the Marian title (birth announcement here, and I posted a pictureposted a picture of Our Lady, Star of the Sea on my Instagram that had “Ave Maris Stella” underneath). I kind of love the connection of the sea to Ireland and Scotland! My grandfather was born and raised in Ireland, in a coastal town, and he worked his way to the U.S. on a ship; the UK’s Apostleship of the Sea has “Stella Maris Masses” said for the seafolk in places including Aberdeen and Glasgow. So cool, right?

And those are all my thoughts and ideas for Genie’s little baby girl! What do you all think? What name(s) would you suggest?