Nicknames

Dominican religious names, etc.

sanctanomina Namespotting , , ,

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

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

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

I hope you all had a great Saturday!

Baby name consultant: Lots of restrictions, lots of creativity

sanctanomina Baby name consultant , , , , ,

Tanya, from the blog Our House, and her husband are expecting their fifth baby, a girl. She writes,

“We ALWAYS have a hard time with names. ALWAYS. I’m Armenian and my husband is French Canadian. Our kids are dark haired and have dark eyes so I don’t like any names that sound super American like Hunter or Emily etc. I like unique names that aren’t too weird or hard to say. As a general rule I don’t like any names in the top 100 list by the SS. We did break this rule once with Samuel. I like names that start with E and A and L … No names that start with other kids letters (I,S,K and N) and last name starts with V … I feel like girls names should be feminine and boys names should be manly.”

As soon as I read this paragraph, I felt like rubbing my hands together with glee — I do so love a good name challenge! Then I read their kids’ names … oh my! I love them!

Keira Joyce (Joyce is Tanya’s mom’s name)
Israel Benedict (Benedict after Fr Benedict Groeschel)
Nairi Anne (pronouced NY-rie, rhymes with Riley)
Samuel Fulton (Fulton after Fulton Sheen as dh loves him)

Tanya and her husband know they’re having a girl, and have a couple strong contenders for her name, but I did this consultation for them a few months ago, and I’ll post it in full (minus the boy suggestions — it was before they’d found out the gender), juuust in case. (Also, just because it’s fun. 🙂 )

Names on their original list for a girl included:

Meliné (Tanya’s grandmother’s name, said mel-eh-NAY) (“I love the name but I don’t think anyone will pronounce it correctly and that will drive me nuts. Plus the accent issue…. I honestly don’t even know how to type an accent“)
Constance or Madeline as middles (Tanya’s hubs’ mom’s names)

Names that can’t be used because of cousins:

Elyse
Kateri
Illana

So here are my original thoughts and ideas:

This consultation was such an interesting one! Between the names they’ve already chosen (especially Nairi), and their restrictions/preferences (no I,S,K,N,V; no American-sounding names; prefer E,A,L; no using cousins’ names), and Tanya’s Armenian heritage and her husband’s French Canadian heritage and Tanya’s grandmother’s French name and Keira’s Irishy name, it was a lot to consider, and a lot that I’m not familiar with. I really loved learning more about Nairi, a name I’ve never heard before – it’s an old name for Armenia, which is such a clever/cool/beautiful way to work in Tanya’s heritage! As you all know, I often start with the Baby Name Wizard book for inspiration, as it offers for each entry boy and girl names that are similar in style/feel/popularity. But the ideas it offered for Keira and Samuel didn’t seem like this family’s style, and Nairi and Israel weren’t even listed, so I felt like I was flying blind a little. So I was extra interested in whether or not Tanya would think I was circling the right areas with my ideas.

Before I list my own ideas though, I had some thoughts about their list: first off, Meliné is just gorgeous. I love that it’s Tanya’s grandmother’s name, and that its Frenchiness is a nice nod to her husband as well. I do agree with her though that its pronunciation will likely be skewered at first pass (I assume most people would say meh-LEEN, especially in absence of the accent), and that accent will definitely be somewhat problematic. I don’t mind the pronunciation meh-LEEN – it’s quite pretty on its own – but I can see why it might feel a big lackluster to Tanya in light of the real pronunciation, as well as not being her grandmother’s pronunciation. I thought maybe a different variation of it, or a similar name, might be a reasonable alternative? I wasn’t able to find it online though … I found Méline, which I think is pronounced more like may-LEEN, which was said to be a French form of Melina, which itself was said to be English, French, and Greek, an “Elaboration of Mel (either from names such as MELISSA or from Greek μελι meaning “honey”). A famous bearer was Greek-American actress Melina Mercouri (1920-1994), who was born Maria Amalia Mercouris.” So that wasn’t terribly helpful … I looked at the variants listed for Melina and thought Melantha and Melania sounded intriguing. Or maybe something like Mila? Similar sounds, but more familiar to Americans. Depending on how close to the actual name a name has to be for Tanya to consider it an honor name, I found some other French M names that I thought might be worth a look:
— Marise (diminutive of Marie – I’m a sucker for a Marian name!)
— Magali (I’ve long loved this one – it’s the Occitan [southern France, et al.] form of Magdalene)
— Margot (solid choice)
— Mireille or its Catalan variant Mireia (gorgeous! They may be trading one difficultly pronounced name [Meliné] for another, but at least there aren’t any accents!)

I also wondered if they might consider Meliné as a middle name? Then it can be said and spelled (accent and all) just as they please with no issues.

Otherwise, I scoured all my go-to sites as well as the BNW book for other ideas that thought might work for them, and while I always shoot for three ideas, I came up with quite a few more, which I’ve grouped into five broader ideas:

(1) French A names
I really like the idea of a French name for this baby, since Keira has an Irishy feel, and Nairi is Armenian – it seems, between Tanya’s grandmother and her husband, that French would make a lot of sense. Using Tanya’s fondness for A names, I looked through listings of French names and loved:
— Amélie (can have the accent, but doesn’t need to, which is a bonus) (I know this is similar to Emily, but doesn’t read “American” to me at all)
— Annick or Anouk (I’ve always loved these variants of Anne. But maybe they wouldn’t care for that, since Nairi’s middle name is Anne?)
— Aurore (I think this is my favorite suggestion for them. It begins with an A, it’s French, it’s got a beautiful sound, and it has R’s in it like Keira and Nairi. It’s also Marian!)

(2) Names “for France”
Because Nairi is an old name for Armenia (and I was clutching at any idea that might work), I looked up old names for France and Canada (and I apologize too if there’s a real political/emotional difference between France and French Canada, where Tanya’s husband wouldn’t feel at all honored by a connected-to-France name … I’m not aware of any, but it’s not my area of expertise!) and found:
— Britta (Brittany would be the actual name, for that part of France, but I’m sure Brittany’s not their style … but when I typed all their kids’ names into nymbler.com, Britta was one of the results, so … maybe?)
— Frances or Franka/Franca or Francesca/Franziska/Franciska (since the Francis names literally mean “from France”)
— Gallia or Galia (Gallia’s not technically a given name, but it’s the old Latin name for France. Galia *is* a real name, though not related to Gallia except in appearance and sound [which I assume they share], it’s a Hebrew name, which could be a nice connection with Israel and Samuel’s Hebrew names while being a nod to French heritage)

Frustratingly, one of the only names I could find connected to Canada that seemed doable – and I was really excited about it for a few minutes – was Scotia (from Nova Scotia). I’d seen someone else consider it recently, and I thought it was brilliant. But then I remembered – no S names! Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, one of the names that was proposed for Canada, when it was being officially named, was Borealia, which is Latin for “northern,” but it makes me think of aurora borealis, which reminds me again of my suggestion above of Aurore. An extra nod to her husband’s heritage? Love it!

(3) Élodie or Laure
I also looked through the E and L lists, and Elodie and Laure both jumped out at me. Like Amélie, Élodie can be spelled with an accent, but it doesn’t have to be. And like with Aurore, Laure has an R in it, which I like as that small thread through the sisters’ names.

(4) Genevieve
Genevieve has been getting more love recently than ever, but it’s still out of the top 200, and St. Genevieve is the patron saint of Paris! So cool.

(5) Azélie (with or without the accent) or Zabel
Zelie’s recently popular among Catholic families, for St. Therese’s mom Bl. Zelie Martin (born Marie-Azélie), but I haven’t seen anyone consider Azélie/Azelie. It begins with an A! And Bl. Zelie’s going to be canonized this fall, so that would be a really nice connection for a little girl born soon after. And I checked out Armenian names, just to see, and came across Zabel, which is an Armenian form of Isabel – Isabel is listed in the BNW as a style match for Samuel, which makes a nice connection. And can you beat Z as a cool letter??

Those were all my original ideas for Tanya and her hubs. As you can see, I’m big on trying to make connections with names, but I also tried to include names just because I thought they might like them.

As an extra bonus, as mentioned above, Tanya emailed me with their updated list and ideas, and an added dilemma. So fun!

“[Email from a couple weeks ago] As of now we are still not sure on a name for her. We are considering Azelie and Ani and Constance (Coco?) … I do love Aurora but I think its too popular and the French Aurore sounds like its missing something to me. I liked some of your M suggestions but two close friends just had girls and both went with M names (Mary and Mariella) so I want to avoid M for now … [Email from just the other day] Since someone posted on your comments the other day about Constance … I would say the strongest contender now (26 weeks pregnant) is Constance Rose with a nickname of Cora/ Coraline or Coco. Dh says he will call her Constance but he is fine with a nickname too … Cora is my fav but our oldest is Keira so it’s kinda close….would love to hear any other creative C names that could work for Constance.”

So coming up with nicknames is one of my very favorite things (as I’m sure you all know!). I had a ball trying to think of more ideas for Constance besides Coco, Cora, or Coraline and came up with (and as you’ll see, I felt very free to be offbeat!):

— Cosette: If they’re willing to consider Coraline for Constance, then I don’t think length or even that close a connection to the name is that important. I really like Cosette because it’s got the C,O,S of Constance, which overlaps nicely with the O,S,E of Rose if they went with the combo Constance Rose.
— Colette: Cosette made me think of Colette, which is a saint’s name, and since Cosette is sort of a mashup of Constance Rose, I immediately thought Colette could be a sort of mashup of Constance Meliné, which just made me want to fall over with happiness. Beautiful!
— Cosi, Coley — Not only can these made sense as nicknames for Constance (especially Cosi), but they were both listed as nicknames for Cosette and Colette, respectively.
— Costa: I believe this is technically a man’s name, a traditional nickname for the Greek Constantine, but it makes so much sense for Constance.
— Stanzi: I read that Stanzi was the nickname for Mozart’s wife in the movie “Amadeus,” short for her given name Constanze. I thought that was cool!
— Tia: According to Behind the Name, Constance is “a Medieval form of Constantia,” so I think Tia could totally work!
— Tacey/Tacy: I thought at first of Maude Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books, where Tacy is a nickname for Anastasia, but I definitely think it can work for Constance (and fun to have a literary connection too!).
— Tasia: I say this TAH-sha, which echoes for me the “ah” in the first syllable of Constance, never mind the shared T,S, and A.
— Stacia/Stasia: I know, I know, it begins with an S, but on the slight chance an S nickname is okay, I couldn’t leave it off the list. It’s got the “Sta” of ConSTAnce and the sss sound at the end, like Constance. It can be pronounced STAY-sha or STAH-sha.
— Scotia: See Stacia/Stasia — I know it doesn’t stand a chance, but this original idea of mine (from “Nova Scotia,” a nod to hubby’s Canadian heritage), like Stacia/Stasia, shares some letters and sounds with Constance.
— Nicknames for Perpetua: Okay, this is another of my crazy ideas, but since Constance has a very similar meaning to Perpetua, I thought maybe one of the Perpetua nicknames might intrigue? Like: Pia, Pippa, Peppa, Pip, Pep, Poppy.

And finally, I did have one more idea that came to mind very recently for Tanya and her hubs, and it specifically goes against her new no-M-names rule, but it seemed like it might be the very kind of name they like: Meike (said like Micah) or Mieke (said MEE-ka) — the former is described as a German and Dutch diminutive of Maria; the latter is said to be only a Dutch diminutive of Maria. I love the pronunciation of Meike especially, though Mieke gets away from mirroring the “ei” of Keira … they’re similar in length and share some letters with Keira and Nairi, and I love that they’re Marian! Meike Rose, Meike Meliné, and Meike Madeline all strike me as really beautiful combos. (Unfortunately I don’t think Meike Constance has a great flow because of the k-k sound. But that doesn’t have to matter, if they love it.)

Whew! That’s a mama of a consultation! What do you think of the nicknames I suggested for Constance? Do you have any other ideas for first names (given that Azelie, Ani, and Constance are the current finalists) or nicknames for Constance?

Baby name consultant: Baby boy due on St. JP2’s feast day

sanctanomina Baby name consultant , , , ,

Julia and her husband are expecting their fourth baby, a boy! Their other children are:

Adam Henry IV
Clare Therese
Frances Gianna (Gianna because, like St. Gianna, Julia’s a pediatrian and mother)

I just love their names — solid and classic and with great faith significance.

Julia writes,

“My husband and I do not have any particular names in mind, unlike with our first three children … [We] have a trend of using family names as well as saint names. I’m not married to the idea of using another family name, though we are traditional like that and I’d be happy to do so again. I’d like to explore some “less traditional” names … my husband loves very “Catholic” names. He has thrown out several names such as Augustine, Boniface, Maximillian, Blaise, etc. I’m not sure I like such bold names, but MAYBE if it had a satisfactory coordinating nickname … I do love some of the suggestions you’ve made of using a more formal name with a good nickname (such as Miles for Maximilian) … I’m open to suggestions!!“

Names they’ve considered include:

George (Julia’s mother-in-law’s father’s name)
A name that starts with “E” (“because this baby is the fourth child born during a fall month, which somewhat mirrors my mother in law who is a fourth child born during a fall month. Her name is “Ellen Kathleen”“)
A name that honors JPII (either his name or legacy) because of being due on his feast day

Alrighty, first off, some thoughts about their current ideas:

George is a great option because it’s Julia’s mother-in-law’s dad’s name (I’m a big fan of family names!), and it’s getting some good Catholic-family name-love recently — I love that Pope Francis’ original first name was George (in the form of the Spanish Jorge). So that’s a great option!

I like their idea of using an E name in honor of Julia’s mom-in-law. I had a few ideas along this line: You all know that I usually start a consultation by looking through the Baby Name Wizard book for inspiration – it lists, for each entry, boy and girl names that match the entry in regards to style/feel/popularity. Two that jumped out at me were Eric and Ethan, both are similar to Adam in different ways – Eric and Adam have a similar popularity trajectory, and Ethan and Adam are both biblical. Julia also said she’d like to explore some “less traditional names,” which I took to mean “less common,” and I thought both Ephraim and Edmund fit that description. Or what about Eli or Elijah or Elias? All of these names are saints’ names.

As for honoring JP2, it’s such a wonderful idea, and I can think of a few different ways to do so. There’s John Paul of course, or Charles/Carl/Karol (for his pre-papal name Karol). In the comments for the consultation I did for Jenny Uebbing from the blog Mama Needs Coffee, Margaret suggested JP2’s childhood nickname Lolek as a possible nickname for Luke, which I think is adorable – and Luke is a style match for Clare! They might also consider the Peter names, which of course would be a nod to JP2 being Pope: Peter or Pierce or Piers. Actually, when I was first reading Julia’s email and saw that she was open to “less traditional” names and that she’d like to honor JP2, I immediately scribbled down Pierce. I can see it being a great first or middle name … Eric Pierce, for example. Or Charles Pierce (first name and middle name for JP2!). JP2’s given middle name was Joseph, so that’s another possibility (also BXVI’s pre-papal name, so it could be a double whammy name!). Or maybe spelling it the way he did (the Polish way): Józef. That could be really great in the middle spot.

OR – this is a cool find – I googled JP to see how he spelled Joseph, and came across his brother’s name: Edmund! One of the E names I suggested above! Wikipedia has this lovely bit about Edmund: “[JP] was close to his brother Edmund, nicknamed Mundek, who was 13 years his senior. Edmund’s work as a physician eventually led to his death from scarlet fever, a loss that affected Wojtyła deeply.” I know Julia already nodded to her profession as a physician with Frances’ middle name Gianna, but the fact that JP’s beloved brother was a physician is an extra-nice connection for her. Also, if they were to consider the combo Edmund Karol, not only would it be a double nod to JP2, but would also give the initials E.K. – just like Julia’s mom-in-law! Actually, Karol would be a great middle for any of the E names I suggested: Eric Karol, Ethan Karol, Ephraim Karol, Eli Karol, Elijah Karol, Elias Karol, all of which would be a fun connection to her MIL.

As for Julia’s husband’s love of really “Catholic” names, my personal taste runs toward the same kind of names (or, as I like to call them, “Catholicky Catholic” names), so I’ve considered most of the biggies for my own boys, and I’m allllll about friendly, accessible nicknames for everyday use, so these are some of the ideas I’ve had:

  • Augustine nicked Gus (my fave) or Augie. Or even Austin, as Austin is an old variant of Augustine
  • Boniface nicked Bo, or even Ben. I’ve seen “Bonnie” too, but I feel like that’s best left to teammates to come up with in the dugout as an affectionate slugger name than for parents to start out that way. Bonaventure is similar
  • Maximilian is one of my faves, and certainly there’s Max, but also Mac and Miles
  • Blaise is good as is, right? I always love that it sounds like blaze=fast, fire, really macho things
  • Ignatius nicked Nate or Natey or Nash. There’s also Iggy, which is really cute
  • Joachim nicked Jake is one I’ve tried to convince my hubs of for years!
  • Cajetan is another I’ve run by my hubs … he’s like, “Um, no.” Haha! Caj is a cool kicky nick
  • Ambrose nicked Sam or Bram. We’ve seriously considered this one ourselves
  • Polycarp could easily be Paul (Pol) in everyday life
  • Xavier nicked Xavey or Xave
  • Benedict nicked Ben or Bede or Buddy or Ned
  • John Paul nicked Jack, Johnny, JP
  • Ooh maybe Justin? For St. Justin Martyr? He’s a Church Father, a big deal — but a great, “normal” name to today’s ears

I feel like where Julia and her husband intersect might be names like Austin and Justin and John Paul, or some of my suggestions below — all super saintly and Catholicky Catholic, but not as hit-you-in-the-face as some of the others. I actually blogged about when Mom and Dad have different name styles, and used that post to write a longer article for CatholicMom.com.

So those are my thoughts/comments on the ideas Julia and her husband already had, but I can always come up with more. 🙂 I always shoot for three, and was able to do so here:

(1) Benjamin (or Jonathan) (or Nathan)
When looking up multiple names in the BNW, I’m always on the lookout for crossover names, names that are similar to more than one of the originals. Benjamin is similar to both Adam and Clare, so I had to include it! I love the name Benjamin – one of my brothers is Benjamin – and Ben is one of the best nicknames in my opinion. Jonathan was only listed as similar to Adam, but my other brother is Jonathan, so Benjamin and Jonathan have always had a similar feel to me. If they paired Jonathan with a P middle name (Jonathan Pierce? Jonathan Paul?), they’d have JP initials, which is a nice connection to JP2. And Jonathan made me think of Nathan, which, when I plugged in all their kids’ names and George, showed up as a style match on yet another of my naming tools, Nymbler.

(2) Louis
Louis is a style match for both Frances and George, and St. John Paul II’s devotion to Mary and his papal motto has been attributed to St. Louis de Montfort:

“… Pope John Paul II gleaned his devotion to Mary largely through the writings of one saint: Louis de Montfort … as he matured in his faith, he singles out one overwhelming influence which changed his life: “At one point I began to question my devotion to Mary, believing that, if it became too great, it might end up compromising the supremacy of the worship owed to Christ. At that time, I was greatly helped by a book by Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort” … Blessed Pope John Paul II thought so highly about the writing of St. Louis De Montfort, that he spoke about the saint on many occasions. In addition, on December 8, 2003, he wrote a special letter on the occasion of the 160th Anniversary of De Montfort’s publication. In this letter he wrote: “I myself, in the years of my youth, found reading this book a great help.”

The book was such a great influence that when he was elected Pope in 1978, he chose his motto from words written by St. Louis De Montfort.

“As is well known, (in) my episcopal coat of arms … the motto Totus tuus is inspired by the teaching of St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort. These two words express total belonging to Jesus through Mary: “Tuus totus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt.” (“I am all Yours, and all that I have is Yours.”) … “This Saint’s teaching has had a profound influence on the Marian devotion of many of the faithful and on my own life.””

(3) Oliver
Clare and Pierce both remind me of Oliver, which I think might fit Julia’s “less traditional” idea — not that Oliver isn’t a traditional name, but traditionally it hasn’t been as popular as it is now. In addition, as one of you readers pointed out to me, St. Oliver Plunkett wrote about Divine Mercy, and of course, JP2 is known as the Mercy Pope because of his devotion to and writings on Divine Mercy. He also canonized St. Faustina and instituted Divine Mercy Sunday.

Whew! Those are all my ideas for this family! What do you all think? What names would you suggest as a brother to Adam, Clare, and Frances?

Reading round-up

sanctanomina Reading Round-up , , , ,

Just a couple quick things that I enjoyed recently:

I Love My Kid’s Unusual Name, about a Mary Cecilia nicked Mamie and her parents’ struggle over the naming process. I guess it’s true that I don’t hear Mamie too much, but I’m not sure I would have classified it as “unusual” until reading this. I guess it is, though “Mary Cecilia” has high-powered Sancta Nomina style. 🙂

And two things from the Twitter-verse:

  • Check out #HipsterConfirmationSaint courtesy of The Catholic Hipster (and fellow CatholicMom.com writer) Tommy Tighe, in which he calls for you to share your Confirmation name with him, if it’s the name of a Hipster Saint (and even if it’s not). Don’t know what the qualifications for “hipster” are? Me neither! But I do love a good name convo so head on over to his Twitter or his blog and share your Confirmation name if you think it might be what he’s looking for!
  • I was cracking up over #CelebBoatNames — I love clever punny names, some of them were really funny.

That’s what I got for you today! Happy Thursday!

Nicknames: Ways to get to Sy/Cy

sanctanomina Nicknames , ,

I’ve been seeing the nickname Sy pop up here and there recently, which has reminded me that I know a boy nicknamed Cy, and it’s kind of stuck with me — it’s feeling really cool to me, and a nice way to manage a heavier or very long given name.

I really liked the suggestion of Sy as a nickname for Sylvester, Silas, Simon, Cyrus, and even Cedric. The Cy I know is Cyril I think, and this suggests it as a nickname for Seymour and this suggests it as a nickname for Josiah. Another possibility is Sidney.

What do you all think of Sy/Cy? Do you know anyone called this, and if so what’s his given name?

Good name posts and beautiful Name products

sanctanomina Holy Name of Jesus, Naming nitty gritty, Resources and recommendations , ,

I loved both of these recent posts on the Baby Name Wizard site:

Are Presidential Candidates Running Away From Their Own Names? (It’s all about nicknames! I was most intrigued by Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz, Cara Carleton “Carly” Fiorina, and Piyush “Bobby” Jindal — Laura explains how each nickname came to be. The comments were good too.)

15 British Baby Names That Just Don’t Exist in America (Fascinating list! “The top 1,000 names lists from England and Wales include scores of names that don’t register in American stats at all. Let me emphasize that: these names aren’t just rare, they’re statistically nonexistent. Given that the most recent U.S. stats tally more than 30,000 names from Aaban to Zyyon, that’s saying something“)

And in light of my posts on the Holy Name of Jesus (here and here) I was loving these products from the Catholic Company:

An IHS Coffee Mug, where IHS is “the Holy Name of Jesus as it was written in the Gospels, is the first three letters of the Greek Spelling of the Holy Name of Jesus. The name “Jesus”, in Greek, is translated “ihsous.”” (Personalizable!)

IHS Coffee Mug

A Personalized IHS Prayer Card Holder, for all those holy cards we all have that “accumulate over time, often being stuffed in Bibles, missals, or prayer books which causes them be lost or forgotten.” (Personalizable!)

Personalized IHS Prayer Card Holder

These beautiful Jesus Beads, which I’d never heard of, but I loved this: “Jesus Beads originated in the tradition of the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. Called a chotki, the strand may have as many as 100 beads or as few as 25. The chotki is traditionally used as a silent “breath prayer”, with “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God” prayed on inhalation and “have mercy on me, a sinner” prayed on exhalation. This is known as the Jesus Prayer, or the Prayer of the Heart, which invokes the Holy Name of Jesus and implores His divine mercy. (You can read about the “Jesus Prayer” in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2665-2669)”:

“Prayer to Jesus

2665 The prayer of the Church, nourished by the Word of God and the celebration of the liturgy, teaches us to pray to the Lord Jesus. Even though her prayer is addressed above all to the Father, it includes in all the liturgical traditions forms of prayer addressed to Christ. Certain psalms, given their use in the Prayer of the Church, and the New Testament place on our lips and engrave in our hearts prayer to Christ in the form of invocations: Son of God, Word of God, Lord, Savior, Lamb of God, King, Beloved Son, Son of the Virgin, Good Shepherd, our Life, our Light, our Hope, our Resurrection, Friend of mankind. . . .

2666 But the one name that contains everything is the one that the Son of God received in his incarnation: JESUS. The divine name may not be spoken by human lips, but by assuming our humanity The Word of God hands it over to us and we can invoke it: “Jesus,” “YHWH saves.”16 The name “Jesus” contains all: God and man and the whole economy of creation and salvation. To pray “Jesus” is to invoke him and to call him within us. His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies. Jesus is the Risen One, and whoever invokes the name of Jesus is welcoming the Son of God who loved him and who gave himself up for him.17

2667 This simple invocation of faith developed in the tradition of prayer under many forms in East and West. The most usual formulation, transmitted by the spiritual writers of the Sinai, Syria, and Mt. Athos, is the invocation, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners.” It combines the Christological hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 with the cry of the publican and the blind men begging for light.18 By it the heart is opened to human wretchedness and the Savior’s mercy.

2668 The invocation of the holy name of Jesus is the simplest way of praying always. When the holy name is repeated often by a humbly attentive heart, the prayer is not lost by heaping up empty phrases,19 but holds fast to the word and “brings forth fruit with patience.”20 This prayer is possible “at all times” because it is not one occupation among others but the only occupation: that of loving God, which animates and transfigures every action in Christ Jesus.

2669 The prayer of the Church venerates and honors the Heart of Jesus just as it invokes his most holy name. It adores the incarnate Word and his Heart which, out of love for men, he allowed to be pierced by our sins. Christian prayer loves to follow the way of the cross in the Savior’s steps. The stations from the Praetorium to Golgotha and the tomb trace the way of Jesus, who by his holy Cross has redeemed the world. “

Jesus Beads

Finally, Devotion to the Holy Face by Mary Frances Lester. I know it’s not specifically about the Holy Name, but I just discovered today that St. Therese’s full religious name was Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, so how coincidental to see this!

Devotion to the Holy Face

Happy Thursday night y’all! (Does anyone else wish it was okay for non-Southerners to use y’all? It’s so useful! I find it creeping into my thoughts though I usually edit it out of my speech … but not tonight! Also, aren’t Thursdays the best? My dad always says that Thursday’s the best day of the week because no one really minds going to work on Friday, since it’s the last day of the week and has a party feel of its own, so Thursday night especially feels kind of like the beginning of the weekend. I suppose that’s the idea behind Thursday nights being Going Out nights in college? So then maybe consider this your happy hour. 🙂 )

(Okay, one more story — my husband went out for a brief drink after work tonight with colleagues, and when he got home I meant to say, “How was happy hour?” but what came out was, “How was holy hour?” Bahaha! I’m still laughing!) 😀

Spotlight on: Dominic

sanctanomina Spotlight , ,

Today’s the feast of St. Dominic and I’m a Lay Dominican so it’s a ready-made name-spotlight day!

I LOVE the name Dominic. It is SO my style, SO Catholicky Catholic. Even behindthename knows it:

“From the Late Latin name Dominicus meaning “of the Lord”. This name was traditionally given to a child born on Sunday. Several saints have borne this name, including the 13th-century founder of the Dominican order of friars. It was in this saint’s honour that the name was first used in England, starting around the 13th century. It is primarily used by Catholics.”

I mean, come on. So awesome. It’s not for nothing that I chose it for one of my boys’ pseudonyms on here.

I admit that, growing up, I might have thought that it was too dark and latin-y for what I assumed my children would look like until I saw Kindergarten Cop and thought I would die over how cute the little Dominic was AND he looked just like what I thought my kids would look like (and a couple of them do!). So yes, it definitely works as well for a blondie as it does for anyone of Spanish descent (like the St. Dominic who inspired this post, de Guzman) or Italian descent (like St. Dominic Savio). Actor Dominic Monaghan (LOTR! Lost!) is a good example of a non-swarthy Dominic. (Actually, there are a couple actor Dominics who aren’t Latin — Dominic Purcell and Dominic West are two such, both of English and Irish descent.) (Also, FYI, Dominic West’s first three names are Dominic Gerard Francis. His children are Martha, Dora, Senan, Francis, and Rose. So fab. Name-wise he couldn’t get more Catholic if he tried.)

Another thing I loved, surprisingly, given my all-nicknames-all-the-time way, about KC‘s Dominic is that he went by the full Dominic, no nickname. I just really love the full name, it’s so handsome. But if you want a nickname, there are a few to choose from. Dom is the obvious, and I think it could be thought of as a half step away from Tom; my dad knew a Dominic growing up and they always called him Dommy, which also calls Tommy to mind. Nic(k)/Nicky is also a possibility (as is the spelling Dominick), or Nico, especially if you go with the super Italian Domenico. Domen is a Slovak form of Dominic and Dinko is a Croatian diminutive — I could see both having potential as nicknames (though Dinko’s appeal would likely be limited). Or there’s the Basque form Txomin. (Oh my.) (I believe it’s pronounced CHO-meen — anyone know any different?)

What do you all think of Dominic? Do you know any? What does he think of his name? Does he go by a nickname?

Happy feast day!!

ETA: This is a perfect place to link to the post I posted on FB the other day — check out these new Dominican Sisters’ beaauuutiful religious names!

Imaginary triplets

sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty , , , ,

Charlotte at the blog To Harriet Louise (which is actually named after a name she loves for a future child!) posted in a really namey post yesterday (in which I got a shout-out! Woo!) her ideas for triplets, inspired by a forum on Nameberry (which I would link to except every time I’ve popped over there in the recent past I get a big scary “Viruses! Malware!” notice — anyone else? I’ve emailed them, they’re looking into it …).

Anyway, I loved Charlotte’s ideas (she used the archangels as inspiration, awesome!), and I thought it was a fun challenge, so I thought I’d give it a whirl here (for mixed-gender trips, they’re listed in fave order):

Girls

Faith Immaculata
Christiana Hope
Josefa Caritas

(nods to the Holy Family and the three theological virtues! Woo!)

(one of our readers has a daughter named Faith Immaculata 🙂 When I first heard it, I was blown away by its gorgeousness and significance, and I continue to be so)

(nicknames are difficult here … Faith doesn’t need one, but Faithy’s cute … I love Christiana and I love the idea of Christi being Latin for “of/belonging to Christ” — what are your best nicks for the Chris- names? Or maybe Ana instead? Josefa could be Josie, or maybe even Seffy? Sef? Or Fa? Hahaha jk!!) (I mean, just kidding about Fa — Seffy/Sef are kinda cute)

Boys

Joachim Patrick
Benedict Leo
Ambrose Edward

(just some of my fave heavy-hitting saintly boy names)

(nicks: Jake, Ben, and Sam, easy peasy)

How about you all? If you were naming triplets, what might you choose?

Baby name consultant: Saintly, different first initials, easy to spell

sanctanomina Baby name consultant , , , , , ,

Caitlin and her husband are expecting their third little one, gender unknown (another green bean!). Their daughters are named:

Claire Camille
Margaret Joyce (called Maggie)

Beautiful names! Caitlin writes,

“Their middle names are our paternal grandmothers’ first names. We’d like to continue that tradition, so we have the following names left to work with:

Jacqueline
Shirley
Paul
Francis
William
Warren

We’d like all of our children’s first names to be their patron saints. We gravitate towards classic English/Irish/Scottish names to tie in with our cultural heritage and our last name — Burch … We would like to do different first initials for everyone … And it has to be easy to spell.”

To give you a further idea of their taste, for boys Caitlin and her husband have considered:

James
Thomas
Henry
Patrick
Peter
George
Benedict

And for girls:

Alice
Beatrice
Helen(a)
Felicity
Jane
Julia
Agnes

Lots of names to work with! After much thinking and musing and taking to my Baby Name Wizard book for ideas, I came up with several ideas for each gender — I always shoot for three, but I had four for each that seemed so spot on to me that I couldn’t narrow it down any further:

Girls
(1) Alice
I was so excited to see that Caitlin and her husband had discussed Alice! It was the first one I had on the list I’d made for her as I was reading her email! I love Alice as a sister to Claire and Margaret/Maggie, and from their family names, I really like the idea of Pauline for Paul — Alice Pauline has such a lovely ring to it, I love it.

(2) Lydia
Lydia is one of my favorite names, and I was delighted to see it pop up in my research. I love that it looks short-ish like Claire but has the same number of syllables as Margaret. I quite like Lydia Shirley or Lydia Jacqueline or Lydia Frances (for Francis of course).

(3) Louisa (nicked Lucy?)
Both Louisa and Lucy seemed like good options for this family — luckily I don’t think they have to choose! Lucy is such a natural nickname for Louisa in my opinion. Louisa totally has the Brit feel of Claire and Margaret, and Lucy is spunky and sweet. Louisa Jacqueline? Louisa Pauline? Louisa Frances?

(4) Eleanor or Violet
Charlotte and Eleanor were names that seemed spot on as sisters for Claire and Margaret, but Charlotte repeats the C initial, and at the time I did this consultation for Caitlin I was still of the opinion that Eleanor is not a saint’s name (I’ve since revised my thinking — there’s a good argument that it can be considered to be related to Helen(a), which was on the list of names Caitlin and her husband have discussed). Both Charlotte and Eleanor pointed me to Violet, and as soon as I saw it I thought it would work well — it can be considered Marian, which is so awesome. I really like Eleanor Frances, Eleanor Pauline, Violet Shirley, Violet Pauline, and Violet Frances.

Boys
(1) Henry
Like with Alice, Henry was my #1 suggestion for Caitlin even before I read that it’s one of the names they’ve discussed! Woo! I love Henry, and it seems a smashing brother name for Claire and Margaret. I like it best as Henry William, and Henry Francis has a really nice flow to it, but it always makes me think of Betty’s second husband in Mad Men (Henry Francis). I learned recently though that I’m dating myself by being influenced by Mad Men, so maybe it’s a non issue? It’s very handsome!

(2) Samuel or Benjamin
Samuel and Sam (Sam!) are great great names and a perfect fit for a brother of Claire and Margaret/Maggie. I like Samuel Francis best, but Samuel Warren works too. And Benjamin has a similar feel to me, and is a bit closer to the feel of Claire and Margaret than is Benedict (from their list), in my opinion. Benjamin Paul is nice because Benjamin is so long and Paul so short; I like Benjamin Francis a lot too.

(3) Edward or Edmund
I love Sts. Edward the Confessor and Edmund Campion — how to choose?! Haha! They’re both British-y, and they both have really cute nickname options (Ed/Eddie, Ted/Teddy, Ned … my dad even had a friend named Edward who went by Zeb!). Edward Francis, Edward William, Edward Warren, Edmund Francis all sound great to me.

(4) Joseph
What else to say? Joseph is classic, masculine, saintly, just. Joseph Paul, Joseph William, and Joseph Warren all work well; I’m not including Joseph Francis because of the ph and F running into each other, but I don’t hate it.

Those are my ideas! What do you all think? What other ideas do you have for a brother or sister to Claire and Maggie?

Girl names turned surnames

sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty , ,

I’ve written before about boy names that have “gone girl” but I’ve compiled a small list of names that started out as feminine first names that then became surnames, and I think (though I could be wrong) that last names as first names historically tended to be given to boys? Can anyone verify that? (I know the South has different traditions regarding last names as first names for girls.)

I’m sure there are much more than this, but these are just what I happened upon while reading Reaney & Wilson this morning:

— Annas, Anness, Annis, Anniss are all from Old French Anés, which was “the vernacular form of Agnes”

— Annatt, Annett, Annetts, Annott are from Ann-ot, which was a diminutive of Ann, which was a pet-form of Annes (Agnes)

— Ebbetts, Ebbitt, Ebbutt may be from Ebbot or Ebbet, which were diminutives of Ebb for Ibb, which was a pet-name for Isabel

— Emmatt, Emmet, Emmett, Emmitt, Emmott, Emmert, Emett, Hemett all from Emmot, which could be from a place in Lancashire, but also “Emmot was a very common pet-name for Emma”

— Ibbelot, Iblot from Ibb-el-ot, a double diminutive of Ibb, which could be a pet form of Isabel (also of Ilbert)

— Ibbott, Ibbett, Ibbitt, Hibbit, Hibbitt, Hibbott, Ibbs, Hibbs can all come from Ibb or Ibb-ot, which is a diminutive of Ibb

— Ibell, Hibble, Hible from Ib-el, a diminutive of Ibb

— Ibson means “son of Ibb”

— Ibbelot, Iblot are from Ibb-el-ot, which is a double diminutive of Ibb

— Libby, Lebby were surnames from pet names of Isabel

— Libbet, Libbett from Libb-et, from Libb, which was a pet form of Isabel

The thing I love most about these is their possibility as fresh-seeming nicknames or variants of Agnes, Emma, Isabel, and Elizabeth for girls (I’ve actually heard of a woman named Elizabeth who goes by Libbett), and variants for honoring female relatives for boys (like, naming a boy Emmett after Grandma Emma or Hibbs after Grandma Elizabeth or Isabel). What do you all think?