Baby Names
Catholic name?
in Baby Names
My husband swears that the middle name of the baby needs to be a saints name according to catholic tradition.
I was not raised in the tradition so I have no idea - does anyone know? Could he possibly be right?
Thanks
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Re: Catholic name?
I believe that was the case MANY years ago. My mother told me she had to give me a saints name as a mn because "Lori" was not a Catholic name and the Church would not baptize me.?
I have no idea what the "rules" are, though.
Perhaps a tradition in his family who happens to be Catholic, but not a Catholic family tradition to my knowledge.
It is a common way to name a Catholic baby, though. My brother and I happen to have saint middle names, but my sister does not. DH and his sister also have saint middle names.
that was the case. My friend's brother didn't have a saints name & the priest refused to baptise him! This was 30 years ago though...lol
I asked the deacon before I had my kids if they had to have saints names & he said they would prefer it, but I've seen many kids that don't
My husband and I love the tradition of celebrating one's "nameday" (the feast day of the Saint you're named after). Many European cultures treat this celebration as a bigger deal than your birthday, even.
This website is my favorite online list of Saints. If your husband wants to follow this tradition, but you're having trouble coming up with names you like, you might take a look. You might be surprised at how many names are Saints' names that you might not have thought were.
This obviously varies by Church. My dad was baptized 65 years ago and doesn't have a Saints name for his middle name. Our priest didn't question our sons middle name when he baptized him either.
This. I got my saints name at 15 but I never legally added it.
Thanks everyone - I'll let him know that it isn't a "law" but a tradition and therefore - I'm right - like always
My understanding is that this is a very common practice among Catholic families, although I'm not Catholic so I don't know the rules.
One thing, though, is that there are so, so many names that are saints' names. So even if you didn't know that you had a saints' name, it's possible that you do. It's not just names like Mary -- Katherine, Margaret, Elizabeth, Emma, and Sophia are all saints names.
Not only this, but also, forms of names count. For instance, there's no Saint Julie, but there are Saints Julia and Juliana. "Julie" would be covered by one of those.
One thing to remember is that the tradition comes from parents wanting to give their children a patron. Without getting into a big discussion of doctrine, naming your kid after a saint is an extra-special request that that saint pray for your kid. If you believe in intercessory prayer and the communion of saints, it's a very cool thing. Also, you pick a Saint's name based not only on just liking the name, but on the characteristics that made that person become a Saint (generally speaking, to be a Saint, one has to have lived a life of what the Church calls "heroic virtue"). Naming your kid something based on the personality traits you want the child to emulate that are associated with the name is something you find in a lot of cultures.
I suspect Marian is considered a form of Mary! Also, there are a couple saints named Mariana, which would definitely count. There is also a saint Thomas of Florence -- I suspect that counts as well!
I had never heard of this naming after saints thing until a few years ago when a Catholic friend was talking to me about naming her son. I was fascinated by how many names are actually saints names!
I'm sure it depends in part on the parish priest. Some are a little more traditional than others.
I second that list of saints names. There are a ton of names on there that you'd probably never know were saints names.
Lol, didn't quite phrase that right. I meant that I didn't know if they counted variations. Marian is definitely a form of Mary!
In my DH's very polish family, it is tradition to name your child after the saint his/her birthday falls closet to. Its a way to honor that saint and connect your child closer to a patron saint and hope he/she will have those virtues.
I like the idea behind it, but don't know if we will do that. There are too many family names that we want to use as it is.
I think it was an old tradition (And maybe even only for those of spanish/latin decent). I think it was tradition to name your child after whatever saint's feast day they were born on. My grandfather was born on March 8, and that was St. John of God's feast day. So his given name was "John of God." Other than him though, I've never heard of it being done.
But is your Dad's first name a Saint's name? I think many priests require at least one, but not both.
Yes, it is, I just checked! My son though does not have a Saints name, unless Finlay is close enough to Finnian
This is an older, very widespread Catholic tradition, although it was never Church doctorine or law. It was once the standard for Catholics regardless of the region they lived in. Unfortunately,over the last 50yrs, Catholics have become less well versed in the Traditions and beliefs of their religion (no slam intended - it's a fact), so customs like this have been forgotten.
At Baptism, your parent's make the choice to "sponsor" you as a member of the Church throughout your childhood and were supposed to choose a saint to interceed on your behalf and to model they way you were to be raised (aka middle name). You choose another saint's name at the time of Confirmation because you are choosing as a mature adult to commit to the Church and at that time can decided who you want to interceed on your behalf and who you want to model your life after (Confirmation name). Because of all the legal red tape involved in changing a name, it is fairly uncommon to your Confirmation name to your legal name
Actually all your DH's names are Saints -- Peter, Mark & Michael.
Yes, this is true, as far as I know. Maybe it depends on the parish or maybe they're less strict about it now, but everyone in my family has one or more saint's name. Biblical names count, too.
In fact, my sister had to give her son a second middle name in order for him to be baptized (it's not a legal name, just for the church documents, like a confirmation name).
The Church wants a name it can tie to a saint. Doesn't have to be the actual saint, and it doesn't have to be the middle.
I have two middle names, both saints, but even if I didn't, Lori is a form of Laura, which is the feminine of Laurence, and there was a St. Laurence. They also accept biblical names, whether they were saints or not, and religiously motivated names, like Faith or Hope.
Frankly, you have to be naming your child something like Evil McSatan to come up with something they won't be okay with somehow.
According to my grandmother, having a Saint's name (either as 1st or middle name) was a requirement in the church where my mom was baptised (in 1947), but she wasn't aware of it until after they had named my mom. So at her baptism they gave her a Saint's name. It's on her baptismal cert, but not her birth cert.
Both DH & I have saint's middle names. And both our children have saint's names as their first and middle names (not entirely by design). It was important to me to have at least one of their names be a saint's name as a tribute to my Catholic faith. My priest never mentioned if it was a requirement.