Name stories

Name story: Porter Joseph

sanctanomina Personal stories, Real-life naming ,

Please note that this may be overly difficult for some to read, e.g., those who are pregnant, as it’s about stillbirth, and includes photos at the end.

This latest installment in our Name Story series is from a mama with a story that I’m sure will simultaneously break your heart and cause you to marvel at the mystery of God’s unceasing and unfailing love and goodness, and the fact that we can always trust Him, even when we don’t understand His plan. At least, that’s what it did for me! I’m confident that you will be touched by the story of Baby Porter — a tiny baby with a big impact.

His mama writes, in an email with the subject line “A naming story about Solanus Casey,”

“Through you, I first heard of Blessed Solanus Casey. As I read about him, I became so intrigued. Both of my parents were born and raised in Detroit, and I was born and raised in a suburb of Detroit, so he felt so ‘real’ to me! I slowly developed a devotion to him. I remember reading once about your suggestion to name a child Porter as a way to honor Fr. Solanus and thought it was a neat idea.

My husband and I were married in June of 2017, and after nearly two years of trying, praying, seeing doctors, etc., we were shocked and thrilled to discover I was pregnant on Mother’s Day 2019.  As the weeks went by, we talked about many girl names we loved but couldn’t find any boy names. I was so sure I wanted a girl! Then one day, I heard the name ‘Porter’ come to me and knew it was God giving me this baby’s name. God used it to change my heart, and for the first time, I was happy thinking about having a boy. I suggested Porter to my husband, and he immediately loved it. Sure enough, in August, we found out we were having a boy!

Everything with my pregnancy was textbook and complication free. Then, on January 17, the day before my due date, I went to the hospital to get checked out because I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.  An ultrasound revealed there was no heartbeat. The next evening, at 6:30 PM, I gave birth to the most beautiful little boy, already at home in Heaven. 

We hadn’t decided on a middle name, but had a short list of names we were considering and had planned to decide once he was born. After I delivered him, the nurses asked his middle name, and I looked to my husband, who said ‘Joseph’. Joseph had been on our list because we have a particular devotion to him, as I’ve worked for the past ten years at a Catholic school named for St. Joseph, but I never really thought we’d use it. The next day, my husband told me he chose that name because Joseph is the ‘silent saint’, and though we don’t have a single recorded word from him in the Bible, his intercession and impact is so powerful. In the same way, he said, Porter never spoke a word, yet we believe his life can be a powerful witness.

I knew God was giving me Porter’s name all those months ago to honor Fr. Solanus Casey. But now I see how fitting his name truly is. Fr. Solanus’ life was simple and humble, and from the outside looking in, seems like a ‘small’ life. But it was anything but. Porter is the same — his life was ‘small’, yet the impact we have seen already is truly overwhelming. His funeral was standing room only, with more than 500 people in attendance, many of whom have never set foot in a Catholic church, or hadn’t in years. In the months since, we have heard so many stories of how his little life has touched others. A scholarship fund to support our poorest students has been set up at my school in Porter’s memory. So many people have thanked us for introducing them to Solanus Casey. Not to mention how his life has changed my husband and me, healing wounds in our family, softening our hearts, and making me braver, more vulnerable, and more compassionate.

It’s also not lost on me that a porter opens doors. It is our hope and prayer that Porter’s life will open doors for people to allow Christ in. We believe that is his purpose, and though my husband and I are unbelievably sad at the life we will never share with him, we wholeheartedly believe that God does not allow any evil from which He cannot bring a greater good. In my times of deepest pain, I am comforted by the thought of just how GOOD that good must be to be greater than the pain!“

I was just so blown away by the tremendous faith and trust this mama and papa have, to remember, in the face of the death of a child — the worst sadness that a parent can experience — that “God does not allow any evil from which He cannot bring a great good” and “just how GOOD that good must be to be greater than the pain.” This beautiful story was such a reminder to me to trust always, and that God’s ways are not our ways.

I also loved the Fr. Solanus connection! I’m so pleased that God allowed my little blog to introduce Porter’s parents to him, and the mama shared even more great information:

“One last note: As I had learned about Solanus Casey over the years, I discovered I had family connections to him. My great-aunt (my grandmother’s sister) had been a friend and frequent visitor of his in Detroit. As a little girl, my dad’s older sister once visited him in Huntington, IN on a trip with my great-aunt. Apparently he made her a peanut butter sandwich on a hot dog bun! Then, a few weeks after Porter was born, my parents were looking through a box of papers to find some information to renew their passports, and they found a membership card for the Solanus Casey Guild belonging to my grandmother (my dad’s mom), who was a lifelong Catholic and died when I was a teenager. My dad had never seen it and never knew she belonged. I love to think how Fr. Solanus was weaving his way into the fabric of our story long before I was even born.

Thank you for introducing me to this humble man, who forever changed the course of my family’s life. I believe our family’s journey with Fr. Solanus is just beginning.” 

Isn’t that just perfect?! “I love to think how Fr. Solanus was weaving his way into the fabric of our story long before I was even born” — that gives me “holy bumps” (as my mom calls them)! Heaven is so close to us — truly, “it’s a thin veil that separates.”

I asked the mama for information on how to contribute to the scholarship fund that has been set up in Porter’s name — such a wonderful cause! If you’d like to donate as well, checks can be made out to St. Joseph’s Catholic School, with “Porter Miros Fund” on the memo line, and mailed to:

St. Joseph’s Catholic School

Attn: Advancement Office

100 St. Joseph’s Drive

Greenville, SC 29607

Please also keep this family in your prayers!

Scroll down to see photos of Porter with his parents, his great-grandmother’s membership card in the Fr. Solanus Guild, and Fr. Solanus himself. ❤️❤️❤️

Porter Joseph and his parents

Bl. Solanus Casey, and Baby Porter’s great-grandmother’s membership card in the Fr. Solanus Guild

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon (not an affiliate link) — perfect for the expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady in your life!

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Name Story: Eden, Abrie, Bradley, Blaise, and Valen

sanctanomina Personal stories, Real-life naming

Happy Easter to you all!! I hope you all had a wonderful, holy, happy Easter, as much as possible in this time. He is risen!! He is truly risen!! What a blessing to celebrate the greatest hope during this time of suffering.

A reader emailed me recently to share about the names of her kiddos, which I just love — I’m always excited to read about the names you chose and why! She graciously said I could share them with you — she and her hubby have an outside-the-box way of thinking about names that I thought you might be inspired by! Mama writes,

“[S]ince you love names so much I figured I would share with you the names of my 5 children ages 7 and under! Most of their names are not so “out there” but a couple of them take even our Catholic friends and family by surprise!

Eden Koryn: “The Garden of Eden was the ultimate paradise and gift. We got Koryn from Corinthians and for some reason we decided to go all millennial on it and change the spelling from Corin to Koryn. Nevertheless I do still love the ring to her name … Her patron is St Therese of Liseux … and the beautiful Little Flower has adopted her as if she was named just for her.”

Abrie JoAnne (pronounced AY-BREE): “Abrie is a completely secular pick … my husband wanted Avery and it was so common at the time that I solidly said no way. So he pulled Abrie out of his thoughts somewhere … I couldn’t turn him down. He was so set on it. We began to become more traditional during her pregnancy though and I had decided to give her the middle name after my late paternal grandmother. And even though we don’t do nicknames in our family, we knew from day one we would call her Abrie Jo. I started to get worried that we were going to name yet another child with no saint name, until our priest said that JoAnne was absolutely a form of Joan for St Joan of Arc. So we were happy to keep the name we chose and oh my is that girl our little Joan D’arc! It’s perfectly her.”

Bradley Joseph: “His name is fairly cut and dry. We had this name set on the shelf from baby number one. And since he was the first boy, it got to come down off the shelf. Bradley is my husbands devout late grandfather. His mother’s father. And Joseph is my husband’s first name, and his fathers middle name, and his grandfather’s first name and his great grandfather’s middle name and so on for many generations. St Joseph is dear to our family and maybe the tradition will be passed on!”

Blaise Anthony: “When I first told family that we were naming him Blaise, they scrunched their face and said they didn’t like it. Some even said “that’s not a saint name”! But of course Feb 3rd is the marvelous feast and blessing of the throats with St Blaise!

My husband got to go on a pilgrimage to Quito, Ecuador for Our Lady of Good Success during this pregnancy. At the time we didn’t know what I was having but I sent him with a list of names to pray about in front of the miraculous statue of Our Lady Of Good Success. I had no idea when the feast of St Blaise was, but the name was on the list because I was partial to the saint for having suffered with a thyroid disorder my entire life. The feast of Our Lady of Good Success is on Feb 2nd, so my husband was still there in Ecuador on Feb 3rd, so therefore he realized his name is Blaise. We were going to use my father’s family middle name which is Matthias.

I was due on June 2nd 2017 and my patron saint has been from the very start St Anthony of Padua. I knew his feast was 11 days past my due date. So I “joked” with [St. Anthony] all pregnancy that if he wanted me to name this baby after him that he could show me in some other way than to make me go 11 days past my due date for his feast. St Anthony is quite funny though and there I was at 2:32 AM on June 13th the Tuesday of St Anthony’s feast day having my son. So Blaise Anthony he is!”

Valen Mariana: “My due date was January 27th, 2019. Since I have a history of going over we were thinking February baby. Because of my husbands pilgrimage to Quito to Our Lady of Good Success 2 years prior, he has had a devotion to this title of Mary. So he told me all pregnancy that she would be born on her feast day on February 2nd. I didn’t believe him.

So we said that if she was born in February at all that we would name her after St Valentine. It’s pronounced just like Valentine, without the “tine”. Even though the name is derived to be masculine, we loved it shorthanded for a girl to Valen. We got lots of eye brow raises for this one. But we were to name her Valen Rosemarie. My husband told me he would be starting his OLGS novena with the intercession of the visionary from this apparition who is not yet beatified. Her name is Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres. He finished his novena at 10 pm on February 1st, and I was past my due date. I went to bed shortly after, but woke up to labor and had our Valen Mariana on the feast of Our Lady of Good Success through the intercession of Mother Mariana on Feb 2nd at 3:29 AM.

We later realized that the original place of the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Good Success was not in Quito, Ecuador but was in Valencia, Spain! Which then melted my heart even more to this title as Valen is now indeed a nod for the original home of this amazing story of Our Lady and her miraculous statue.”

Aren’t these great stories?! And such cool names! I love the layers of meaning that are included in each name, and the really original ways these parents have had of choosing names that fit with their taste and also have solid faith connections. I had particular goosebumps over Valen’s story — being named for a February Saint, only to find out that the truncated version they chose is exactly shared with the original location of the miraculous Marian statue of the title of Our Lady they have a particular devotion to, and that baby Valen was born on the actual feast of that title of Our Lady — amazing! It’s stories like those that always make clear to me how aware God is of our every hope, desire, and individual characteristic. ❤ ❤ ❤

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon — perfect for expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady!

Name story: Leland, Elliot, Fulton, Selwyn

sanctanomina Personal stories, Real-life naming

Happy third day of Christmas!!

A reader emailed me recently to share her boys’ names — I love when you guys do that!! (Check out my Name Stories tag for more!) I know you’ll love reading about this beautiful family! Emily writes,

“I thought you would get a kick out of our name rules!

Our first we named Leland, we wanted something classic but not common. It was a name of a trustee at my husband’s school and an editor of a Bible we purchased.

Number 2 we named Elliot just because we liked it, a slight nod to T.S. Eliot. We thought it went well with Leland.

We found out number 3 was another boy, and I enjoy several Catholic blogs despite not being Catholic myself, and I fell in love with the name Fulton. What a perfect fit for our boys’ names!

I was wrapping the big brother presents prior to his birth and used dot stickers and noticed the first 2 had 6 letters . . . and so did Fulton! And they all had an L as the 3rd letter! Other things include being last names, sort of British, and generally pretentious 🙂

Boy #4 would arrive in 2018, so we had to find a name that would fit our “rules”! While reading a short story by L.M. Montgomery I came across the name Selwyn, and at first I thought it was too much, but then it really grew on me and now here we are with 4 boys who fit the rules!

… [H]ere are their full names. The first 3 middle names are family names, the 4th middle name we wanted a Bible name with a good meaning and of course flow.

Leland Daniel (God will judge the meadowlands)

Elliot David (God is the Lord, Beloved)

Fulton Ray (Either, Sunshine on the bird enclosure, Or, King of the fields of the village)

Selwyn Jude (Friend of the manor, Praise God)

One more story — when I looked up Selwyn on one baby name website, it said “you may also like: Leland”!!!“

I loved reading about these boys’ names! What a cool theme this family has going! And they’ve chosen really fun, unexpected names — “classic but not common” is a perfect description of them! I’ve never come across anyone in real life with the names Leland and Selwyn (though we love Monk and his boss is Leland Stottlemeyer) — it’s not often I’m surprised by names, and I’m always excited when it happens! Have any of you seen Leland or Selwyn in real life? I love Elliot and Fulton as their brothers, what a great set! Thank you to this mama for sharing these great names!

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon — perfect for expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady!

Name story: Oscar Thomas

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A few years ago I did a private consultation for a mama pregnant with her sixth baby — a boy she and her husband named Oscar Thomas. (Oscar Thomas! I love it so much!) She recently wrote to tell me more of the story — specifically, how the name they chose for him ended up being so perfect for him in other ways:

“You helped us out over three years ago with a name for our sixth child and fourth boy, Oscar Thomas.

Anyway, I have a story to share. Our Oscar began having seizures when he was five months old, and it turns out he has some profound, lifelong disabilities. (He is making good progress and he is an amazing, dear boy; we are in a great place as a family now but getting here was rocky.) But I am telling you this because I feel like Oscar is THE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT name for him, and one we would never have considered without your nudge. It is strong and determined and a little funky, just like him.

St. Oscar Romero was beatified while I was pregnant, but not canonized until after our “storm,” when we had really found our peace with Oscar’s medical issues. We prayed for his intercession on a daily basis and felt like he walked the whole journey with us, while he waited for his own reward. I am so grateful that our little boy has this tremendously powerful friend in heaven, and I am grateful to you by extension for making the introduction. 😉 We didn’t know at the time our Oscar was born how much we were going to need someone like that.

Anyway. You popped up in my Facebook feed today and I felt prompted to let you know that the work you do matters, sometimes maybe more than you know.”

How amazing is that?? What a wonderful story!! I love her description of both the name Oscar and her boy Oscar: “strong and determined and a little funky, just like him.”

There’s more! The mama, Christy, included Oscar’s name story and some more fun details in her amazing blog post entitled What’s in a name? How our kids got their Catholic saint names and why it matters. She said everything I always want to say, and she said it so well! There’s so much I want to quote from her post, but I don’t want to discourage you from going to read it in its entirety. Seriously, you’ll love it.

Thank you to Christy for sharing all this wonderful information!

Name story: Caspian and Eliot

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Today’s Name Story is about Shaina’s little guys! She writes,

“Our first son we named Caspian Isaiah. I told my husband while we were dating that I loved the name Caspian and wanted to use it for a son someday! We are both big Lewis fans, and he played an important role in my grandfather’s faith walk when he went through a period of agnosticism. Well.. about nine months after our wedding, Caspian made his debut! We picked Isaiah because we wanted a Bible name and we loved the way it sounded with the first and last name. Our girl name (we haven’t found out gender before birth so far) was Melanie Rowena. I felt a little silly naming our baby Caspian…because really, who does that? But the slight weirdness wore off quickly and it fits him perfectly.

During my second pregnancy, my husband and I went back and forth on a boy name. I love the name Eliot and he didn’t. But I kept coming back to it and eventually he said we could use it as long as we spelled it his way. Agreed! We chose the middle name James. Our girl name for him was Aida Christine. We both love the sound of Aida and were having a really hard time finding a saint name we liked to go with it, but apparently there are several St Christinas and Christine is a family name on my husband’s side. When our son was born, he reminded us both so much of my side of the family and my father specifically that we gave him my dad’s name too, so he ended up Lane Eliot James. We mainly call him Eliot still. And Ee-ot! haha.”

Caspian and Eliot!! Looooovvvveeeeeee!! ❤ ❤ ❤ Shaina said that “finding a name that does go with Caspian without being total geeks is a difficult balance,” but I think they did an amazing job with Eliot!

Shaina wrote, “We became Catholic shortly after Eliot was born, so I’ve been enjoying diving into your blog and discovering a different motivation behind naming,” which makes me so so happy that I can help in this small way! And also — she shared her list of names for future babies! (She was very clear though that these aren’t necessarily husband-approved! 😀 ) Check these out:

“John Michael Loren. (call name Loren. I love the name John but we have four of them in the family already. And love that Loren is less common.) John for our both our mentor and my husband’s confirmation names. And so many St Johns. Michael after my husband, and St Michael. And Loren after my husband’s grandfather.

Vivienne Cypress. just love it. the end. (well, and there’s a hymn written by a friend dear to our hearts from the scripture “how like a cypress evergreen”

William Wise

Lewis Martin. Lewis and Martin are both family names. And L M is my MIL’s initials.

Illa Anne-Marie. Illa is my husband’s grandmother’s name. And I dunno, I just like the way Anne-Marie goes with it.

Sebastian Philip. After Bach! And St Sebastian. And Philip after my husband’s friend.”

So many unexpected names! I LOVE unexpected names! I love that they’d call John Michael Loren by his second middle, WOW! Vivienne Cypress! Cypress! What a cool middle name! Same with Wise! I love William Wise! And Illa! Can you tell I’m all heart eyes over these interesting picks?! I love Lewis Martin and Sebastian Philip as well. Such a cool list!

Thank you to Shaina for sharing all of this with us! Here are her handsome little guys:

Caspian and Eliot

Name story: Owen, Violet, Eliza, Edmund

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Leslie emailed me to share the stories behind the names of her kiddos, and I’m so glad she did! This is the latest in the Name Stories series, where I share families’ name stories, whether they’ve had a consultation done or not. (This one also fits nicely in with our recent conversations about literary names!)

Leslie writes,

“I discovered your blog while my husband and I were going through RCIA (we were received at Easter 2016) and have enjoyed it so much! We just had our fourth baby (well, on 10/27 — it’s gone fast) and our first since joining the Church, and I was hoping it would be ok for me to say hello, and thank you for your awesome site, and tell you a bit about our kids’ names.

We were Protestant when we named our first three kids, but it’s been so cool to discover ways that their names connect to the Catholic faith, without our planning it. Our first child is Owen David. Owen we just picked because we really liked it but we have loved learning about the awesome St. Nicholas Owen, who used his carpentry skills to build priest holes in 16th century England. David is a family name for both me and my husband.

Next we had Violet Irene. I actually learned from you that Violet can be considered a Marian name! That’s another one that we just picked because we loved it. There is a St Irene, although not much is known about her — I love that the name means “peace” and is the name of the main character in George MacDonald’s book “The Princess and the Goblin.”

Our third child is Eliza Lark. My husband’s grandmother was named Elisabeth and my sister is Elizabeth so using Eliza was a nod to both of them. We picked her name out before she was born, but by the time I gave birth we were starting to think pretty seriously about converting and St. Elizabeth and the story of the Visitation became really important to me as we were going through all that. I believe her intercession played a significant role in my labor and delivery, and God gave me a lot of peace through that experience that we were indeed supposed to pursue joining the Church.

As for the middle name Lark, my husband suggested we try to use a nature-themed middle name for Eliza, since big sister is Violet, and Lark immediately felt right as it’s the name of one of my favorite children’s books, by Sally Watson. The main character is named Lark and she’s strong and spunky. So both our girls have middle names inspired by strong characters in wonderful children’s books!

We were team green for the first time ever with our fourth baby. I was POSITIVE we were having another girl, but luckily we did have a boy name picked out because that’s what we had!

It was a very easy choice — once we learned about St. Edmund Campion we knew we wanted to name another son after him, if we had one. We loved the sound, loved how it went with our other kids’ names, and loved how it connects us to our beautiful Catholic faith. We somehow made it to Mass on All Saint’s Day, even with the new baby, and it really hit me as I listened to the litany of saints what a precious gift it is to give our child a name that connects him from his first moments to an intercessor in Heaven! Wow, I love being Catholic.

Thank you for letting me share and thank you again for a great blog! God bless you!“

What awesome names!! And such great name stories!! As I told Leslie, it’s so cool that they were able to discover saintly connections in their older three’s names after their conversion! And Edmund Campion (yes, that’s his full given name — love it!!) is an amazing addition. About his name, Leslie writes,

“I thought we might use Camp as a nickname but so far we mostly just call him Edmund, although his sisters do love to call him “Campion ” or “Edmund Campion”, which is really cute. And something I forgot to mention is that it was very cool to make the connection that Edmund Campion and Nicholas Owen are both English martyrs, it’s a neat link for our boys to share (and Owen, age six, likes to hypothesize that maybe they were friends!).”

(Be still my heart! So sweet! 😍)

Thank you to Leslie for sharing these wonderful stories, and this photo of her beautiful family!

IMG_20180107_153842_283

 

Name story: Ruby and Peter

sanctanomina Personal stories, Real-life naming, Sancta Nomina community

Two things happened recently that inspired this post: one was that a reader suggested I do a series on “the stories behind the names” — sharing the name stories of the children of any of you that would like to do so, whether you’ve had a consultation/birth announcement or not, which is an idea I love. The other was that another of you messaged me, “So I’ve shared bits and pieces about my daughter’s name with you, so I thought I’d just give you the whole big run down! I know you love name stories.” Perfect timing!

I’ve shared personal stories before, tagged either Name stories, Personal stories, or Real-life naming (little Meriam’s recent post is a perfect example), but I want you all to consider this an official invitation to send me your kiddos’ name stories, if you’d like to! I’ll run them when I have openings — I know I’d love to read them, and I’m sure all of you would as well!

So first up we have that mama who messaged me about her daughter’s name, and then she added in the info for her son’s name, and I’m thrilled to share their stories with you because they’re awesome!

Theresa and I follow each other on Twitter, and she has indeed shared bits and pieces of her daughter’s name with me before, so I loved reading the whole story!

“She’s Ruby Mae Anastasia. I liked the names Ruby and Mae independently of each other but one day (before we were even married!) my husband said, ‘What about the name Ruby Mae?’ I told him I loved it but that she needed two middle names (I have two and so we agreed so would each of our kids). Immediately he threw out Anastasia and we were set.

When we were finally pregnant, I actually wanted a completely different name for our first girl but this one kept coming back to me and eventually I gave in. Then all the weird coincidences started happening.

Ruby is both mine and my mom’s birthstone, so that was a nod to us. Mae is obviously a form of Mary and my mil’s middle name is Marie and my sil’s name is Maria, so a nod to all three of those ladies. Mae also means flower; my mil and I are both named for St. Thérèse the Little Flower, so that became another nod to all three of us. Then Anastasia is my other sil’s confirmation name, and then An- was a nod to my, my mom’s, and my maternal grandmother’s middle name Anne. But there’s more!

Ruby was due on Sept. 15 — feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. This is where things get even crazier. I have a huge devotion to OLS, my paternal grandma died on her feast and *her* Mother was named Maria Delorosa and raised my gma and her siblings in Seven Dolors parish. My mom (and all of my dad’s family) are buried at Seven Dolors cemetery. So I *knew* that OLS just had to be her patroness and I consecrated Ruby to her in utero. But there’s more!

My paternal grandma’s name was Irene and her mom heard it on a radio program and fell in love with it. I first heard Ruby on a television show a couple years before I met my husband and fell in love with it. I consider that a special link between my daughter and my Gram.

And then you made me realize the connections between Ruby and the Sacred Heart and the Precious Blood, both of which I’m very devoted to, so I count those in her patronages, as well.

Literally all the women in my family are accounted for in Ruby’s name … and then she’s got some powerful patrons on top of that! It was just so perfect I love when a name just comes together like that and I *love* when they’re so full of meaning.”

Isn’t this amazing? I totally agree with Theresa — I love when when names come together like that, and when they’re so full of meaning.

I asked her if her son had an equally as great story and Theresa said,

“Not nearly as involved but yes! I’ve always wanted to name my first son Peter and hubby was totally on board. Peter is for two of my favorite literary characters — Peter Pan and Peter Pevensee — and then for St. Peter. His middle names are Leon and Gerard after his grandfathers. Leon is my fil’s middle and Gerard is my dad and his dad’s name. My name goes similarly — I’m named for my mom’s favorite saint and then my middles are for my gmas, one of their first names and the other’s middle; so we thought that was a nice connection. My dad’s brother never had any sons (neither did my dad, actually) but if he had, he would’ve named one Peter, so I think this is a nice nod to him, too, as I’m very close with that Uncle. But there’s more! Growing up, we didn’t live near either side of my family, so my bff’s grandparents ‘adopted me’ and I remained semi-close with them until their deaths. My adopted gpa’s middle name was also Leon, so that’s a nice nod to him! Peter likes to tell us he’s also named for Spider Man (Peter Parker) bc that’s his favorite character, sooooo we just go along with it 😂 Obviously, there are also Sts. Leo and Gerard that we invoke for his patronages as well.”

I just sigh with happiness over good name stories. 😊😍❤️ Thanks to Theresa for sharing this great info! And please feel free to share your own! Email me at sanctanomina at gmail dot com and write “Name story” in the subject.

Name story: Meriam Joyce

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Every once in a while I get an email from a reader simply because she wants to share the story of her child’s name. I LOVE those emails! So fun! Zoe emailed me recently to tell me about how her daughter got her name, Meriam Joyce, and I thought her strategy might be helpful for some of you:

“Meriam is almost a year old now. She is my only child (so far) and originally finding a name we both liked was tough. We decided that I would get to choose the girl name and my husband could choose the boy name. At fourteen weeks, we agreed on Mia for a girl and Jack for a boy. Shortly after, we found out we were expecting a girl. But something about Mia just didn’t feel complete.

When I was 6 months pregnant, my mom was visited by Mother Mary in a dream. My mom already had a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother, especially when she was immigrating to the United States by herself as a young adult in the 1970s. This has been passed on to me as well; there are many times in my life that Our Lady has intervened on my behalf. In the dream, Mother Mary told my mom that the baby should be given a Marian name, specifically the name Miriam. I have since read that “Maryam” is probably one of the most accurate forms of her name during the time of Jesus.

My mom brought this to me and I liked the significance of the name. We decided to stick with Miriam instead of Mia and changed the spelling to Meriam. My grandmother is Melinda and my sister is Ria Melinda. So ME from Melinda combined with RIA M from Ria Melinda spells Meriam. Joyce is after my mom, who originally had the dream.

We were going to eventually incorporate Mia as a nickname, but it never stuck. We usually call her Mer (pronounced “mare”), Meri (like Mary), or Blueberry (because during our first ultrasound, she was the size of blueberry). Meriam is named after many special women and we are delighted to be her parents.”

Isn’t this such a great story?! I love Marian names anyway, but with this little Meriam having the extra significance of ME from Great-Grandma Melinda and RIA+M from her aunt is ah-MAZ-ing! And Joyce for her Grandma! All the important women in one beautiful little girl’s name!

Thanks to Zoe for sharing her daughter’s name story, and for sharing this adorable picture!

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Meriam Joyce