Personal stories

Reading round-up

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When I was first having my babies, Danielle Bean was the mama of Catholic mom bloggers. She hasn’t blogged in ages — she’s now the editor of Catholic Digest, and an author and TV talk show host (!), and her kids aren’t babies anymore — but her writing helped me through those first few rough years of trying to figure out motherhood, and a lot of what she wrote is still fresh in my mind. Like this article, which I was thinking about the other day and decided to see if I could find: What’s In a Name?

Also, this post of mine was inspired by a reader’s naming dilemma on Swistle’s blog — the mom has given an update with the baby’s name, head on over to see what the new baby brother of Haven, Lark, and Tusker is named!

Baby name consultant: He likes/she likes

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A reader recently asked me for thoughts on how to find compromise names when Mom’s and Dad’s tastes are vastly different. I’ve mentioned before that I have found over and over that the absolute height of baby naming satisfaction for me is when my husband and I hit on that name that we both agree on. It might not be my very favorite name or his, but I find that I’m much happier and more peaceful with our choice knowing that we agreed on it together. I think I would actually hate it if I got my way, if my husband gave in – I want him to love his children’s names too.

But how do you find that name that you both agree on? For my reader, her preference is Joseph/John/Patrick-type names – names traditional to our faith that “don’t raise too much of an eyebrow.” Her husband loves heavy-hitting uncommon super-Catholicky Catholic names — think Church Father type-names: Polycarp, Irenaeus, Eusebius. Here are three ways I could see working with this:

(1) Nicknames—usual or unusual

To me, a good nickname can solve the vast majority of he likes/she likes disagreements. If the proposed name is too exotic for the other parent’s taste, could a friendly, “normal” nickname be tricked out of it for everyday use? Or the proposed name is too vanilla for the other parent, could a more unusual nickname be fashioned? To tone down the more exotic, Augustine could spend his days as Auggie or Gus; Ignatius as Nate; Cajetan Joseph could go by CJ. To jazz up a more common name, you could try Finn as a nickname for Francis, or Bede for Benedict (a two-for-one saint bonus here! St. Benedict and St. Bede in one little guy), or even something like Rory for Robert or Toby for Thomas Bernard.

(2) Use a saint’s full name as a first and a middle

Like Justin Martyr, Philip Neri, Peter Damian, Anthony Mary Claret (bonus points for Mary in the middle for a boy!), Charles Borromeo, John Chrysostom, Francis de Sales, Nicholas Owen, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas More, John Fisher. Totally heavy hitting but the “crazy” part is hidden in the middle. This article, which I linked to the other day, good naturedly pokes fun at the Catholic tendency to do that, but there is a reason it’s done!

(3) Otherwise compromise

There are a few different ways to do this, of course, and I’m sure you all know them already. For example, for Baby #1 Mom gets to choose the first name and Dad gets to choose the middle; next baby vice versa. Or decide together to have Dad go nuts in the middle name while Mom chooses a more conservative first name. Or find names with overlap – in this case, to bridge Patrick and Polycarp, such overlapping names might include: Augustine, Dominic, Benedict, Simon, Nathaniel, Roman, Adrian, Jude, Matthias, Sebastian, Gabriel, Thaddeus, Jerome. Names that hit you in the face with their Catholicism, but don’t require you to have read The Complete Ante-Nicene & Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Collection (3 volumes) to know who they are.

What about all of you? How have you handled the inevitable disagreements in baby naming? Do you have a system worked out (e.g., Mom names this baby, Dad the next; Dad chooses first names, Mom chooses middles)? Will you share some of the names you disagreed over?

Let’s talk about pronunciation

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I love a “correctly” spelled and pronounced name as much as the next name nerd. But in my years (and years) of reading reading reading name blogs and name books and name discussion forums, and inserting myself (invited or not) into any name discussions I hear going on around me, I’ve come to realize that I have not always been correct. Or rather, that certain “errors” I sometimes see/hear people make in regards to names are not actually as incorrect as I have believed.

One big example is Kateri.

I am familiar with the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs (for the North American Martyrs, including St. Isaac Jogues) in upstate New York, which is at the birthplace of our brand new St. Kateri Tekakwitha. For the life of me, I can’t remember ever hearing anyone who works there actually say the name Kateri, but I’m sure they must have in my presence a thousand times, and since I grew up knowing Kateri is pronounced kah-TEER-ee, I assume that’s how they say it. (Otherwise I’d have some memory of being jarred when hearing a different pronunciation said at the shrine, right?)

Therefore, I always knew that Kateri was pronounced kah-TEER-ee.

Then I made a friend who has a sister named Kateri, and they say kah-TARE-ee.

Then a friend named her daughter Kateri, pronouncing it KAH-ter-ee (nickname Kat, so cute!).

Behindthename.com’s entry for Kateri didn’t even venture a pronunciation, and among the people who commented the following pronunciations emerged as ones they’d heard used or assumed were correct: KAY-teree, kah-tuh-REE, kah-TAR-ie (all I think of with this is the John Wayne movie Hatari and the Atari video game system), and GAH-dah-lee, which is said to be the “authentic Native American pronunciation.”

Given all this, would you be able to say there is one “correct” pronunciation? Which one would it be, and why?

What about Gianna? St. Gianna Beretta Molla is so beloved (for good reason!) that she has a million little namesakes — first names, middle names, Confirmation names, religious names. It seems the Italian/original pronunciation is JAHN-nah, but I’m sure you’ve all heard and/or used the pronunciation jee-AH-na. Does that make the latter wrong? Not in my opinion, and I’ve got good company: My mom was taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph at the convent school she attended from Kindergarten until twelfth grade, and she remembers the Sisters — who were sticklers for every kind of rule — specifically teaching them that when it comes to proper names, no one has the market on the “correct” pronunciation.

Yes, Sister.

How do you say Kateri and Gianna? What other names can you think of that have different pronunciations? (Coming very soon, a spotlight on the grandaddy name of split pronunciation opinions: Xavier.)

Many many thanks, and an update

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You guys! I’m totally blown away by all your amazing comments and suggestions and enthusiasm, but most of all for popping over here to begin with! What fun this has been for me over the last day and a half, I’m totally thrilled that we’ve all been able to pitch in and help Simcha. I canNOT wait to see what name she and Damien end up choosing!

Which brings me to a new bit of info, which I didn’t have when I wrote the post (but I guess I should have — apparently some of her readers already knew it): Baby Fisher is a girl! So my Isaac/Solomon/Asa suggestions and all of your great ideas for a boy will have to be shelved for now.

I’m still pulling for Stella, or Esther/Miriam, or Hannah, in that order, and you’ve all contributed a lot more ideas as well, so now we just … wait. I’ll post the birth announcement here as soon as Simcha does.  🙂

In the meantime, I hope you stick around! I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments or via email, with name stories or name dilemmas or suggestions for posts. Happy weekend!

Naming twins

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I came across this very cool post today: How to Name Catholic Twins.

This is totally my kind of name article. Well and thoroughly researched, with lots of commentary and references. The author, Meg, lists suggestions for twin boys, twin girls, and boy/girl twins. Name candy for sure, an enjoyable read.

Syro-Malabar Catholic naming (India)

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Swistle posted a letter the other day from a mom whose husband is Indian and a Syro-Malabar Catholic, or Syrian Catholic: Baby Boy or Girl Molly-ache-elle, Sibling to George (Gil). I’d known a little but not a lot about this Catholic community (which is in line with the Roman Catholic Church), and nothing at all about their naming traditions, until reading this post and some of the comments, especially this one, this one, and this one.

(I weighed in too — see my comments here.)