I have never met her and don’t think I have even conversed with her on the net. But if Dwija of House Unseen has her baby today, there are plenty of names to choose from. I am sure her and her husband have had plenty of chats on finding another name for a fifth child! Congrats and best of health to baby and mother! By the way, “Jared” is a pretty cool name. Stacy, remember that too! 
In our small family of three, we went through the list to find names. Our first son is named Dominic. No, it doesn’t rhyme with my last name. Dom-in-ik vs. Ta-mon-ik. Dante convinced me to choose “Dominic.” The name comes from the Latin “Dominus” and translates as “the Lord’s possession.” It is often hard to remember this when fits, fights, and back-talk are being corrected, but it is nice to be calling on the name of the Lord whenever we say his name. Dante called St. Dominic “God’s holy athlete” and with our backgrounds in sport, we were excited to choose the “Dog of God.” Prior to “Dominic,” a few names I liked were: Athanasius, Anselm, and Polycarp.
Our second child was named “Anya” and this name was a sudden choice by my wife under drugs. Five minutes after the c-section, my wife leans over and asks me what we named her. Given it was just two minutes prior when my wife named her, I thought it a good idea to continue what she said. My preference was Anastasia or Scholastica. Given my Slavic heritage, I liked the sound of an Eastern name for St. Anne. Seven years and I still think the name is as beautiful as the day it was almost forgotten.
The little fart had his name chosen when we had the ultrasound and knew he was a boy. We were living in the city of St. Anthony at the time and the name took pride of place. Little did we know that he was going to surprise us two days earlier from the scheduled delivery date. When I noticed the date and looked up the feast day, I found that he shared his birthday with St. Anthony of the Desert, the Great, the Anchorite, the Father of All Monks. On this same day is Genitus’ feast day. Can you imagine growing up with that one? Had he been born on June 13 (hey, that is today!!!) he would have been named after St. Anthony of Padua.  Of course, we may have chosen Gamelbert, Peregrinus, or Rambert. I am sure those would have gone over well with the grandparents.
So where do I get all these fantastic options? Back when I taught theology in high school, I would give a short bio of the feast day saint. The best website that broke the saints down both alphabetically and by patronage is saints.sqpn.com. If you are like me, you could spend hours just browsing the lives of these heroes of faith.
Some ways to choose a name:
- Patron saints index
- Calendar day of birth for a patron saint on birthday
- Perhaps choose a virtue to name him after, i.e. Fortitude, Frugality, or Orderliness
- Name him after the father of Enoch (Gen. 5:19)
- Search for a saint with a special relationship to your home country, city, hobby, spirituality, etc.
- Find a unique name to match the uniqueness of another human person
- There is the point at random method
Lastly, know how to bargain. I liked unusual names. I figure you will never forget “Sabinus Theogenes Athanasius Ignatius Numerian Tomanek.” If you start with a name a little further out there, then you can reach a compromise but still have a pretty unique name.
How did you choose the name of your son or daughter? Do you have any special reasons for the name you chose? I didn’t know I was born on the feast of St. Quintus until I was older and I don’t know if my parents knew it. It is one of those divine coincidence things. How about your own name?
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://ignitumtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/JTDTAT-Childrens-House-Copy-e1329964684276.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Jared Tomanek lives in the country of Texas with his wife Denise, a Southern Belle from Trinidad and Tobago, and his three children. He holds two graduate degrees from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, an MBA and Master of Science in Organizational Leadership, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Franciscan University of Steubenville. Having taught for five years in Catholic education, he now works in the construction industry in Victoria, TX. He is a parishioner of Holy Family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus Parish in the Diocese of Victoria. He also blogs at his local paper on just about everything cool.[/author_info] [/author]
Photo: Public Domain
12 thoughts on “The baptismal name game”
I love talkin’ baby names! So funny about Dwija! 🙂
We weren’t as engaged in our faith for the first few children so saint names weren’t as much of a focus for us as family names were. More recently, saint names have helped us name our children. We have Aniston, Miles, Joseph (goes by Ander), Genevieve Clara, and Jude. I have encouraged Aniston to think of St. Ann as her patron. Miles loves that his name means soldier in latin so he is fond of St. Michael. Plus, he was born on the fest of St. Francis (which we didn’t know at the time) so he is drawn to him too.
We’re going for honoring Joseph and Mary with our first boy and girl – Joseph Benedict (My husband has a particular devotion to Benedict) and Mary Ryan (First and maiden name of my father’s mother who passed away of breast cancer when he was young). Our second boy will be John Michael, but after that I think we’ll be brainstorming. We both like the idea of saints names, but I am also partial to the idea of family names as well.
On a minorly connected note, because it is just so exciting, on Saturday we are going to find out whether it will be Joseph or Mary we welcome into our home in October! 🙂
Jared, You are killing me! Scholastica? Seriously? I could probably do the Rambert name.
My ex-sister-in-law comes from a Catholic family. Two boys, four girls. I really think the parents were trying to raise nuns–Mary Delana, Mary Leticia, Mary Sedonia and Mary Emilia. Sound like a quartet of nuns, doesn’t it?
Keep writing–I am truly enjoying your stuff over here! Did I miss the ‘manliness’ blog you promised?
EA
Our first daughter is named after the saints I was praying to during our extremely long path of infertility. Even though my mother said I didn’t need to use all the names I felt we had no choice so Annamaria Isabella Faustina it was. Then miracle baby number two came (breech and not by c-section) three days before her scheduled c-section on Sept 8th (she’d have been Mary Francis) and it was the feast of Mother Teresa of Calcutta so she is Teresa Christiana. If we are ever blessed with a boy Joseph Emanuel is a top choice.
Haha! Jared, I named one child after my paternal grandmother, Marie, but as much as I love and admire my maternal grandmother I never could figure out how to make the name “Fannie Mae” work in this day and age. I love her though. She was a great lady.
I will keep Jared in mind though. There could still be more…
My husband was deployed to the first Persian Gulf War right after the stick turned pink (1990) and we didnt see each other until just before the birth. There was no email, skype or satellite phones back then, so we were limited to letters that didnt get lost in the mail.
It is odd to consider names without being able to speak to ones spouse. I wanted to name him Rocky and I was told the whole ship full of Marines said no. We considered Cliff, but settled on Joseph. He is not your average Joe, mind you, but when you have such a short time to decide, Joe it is. (and it was Joseph of the Holy Family who was our inspiration).
When pregnant with our daughter, I went to work in a NICU that night and saw a beautiful little girl (who was the same gestational age as my unborn daughter)named Juliana die right in front of me. I went home and said nary a word of it but my husband met me at the door with an excited look on his face and he said (I swear this is true) “I know, lets name her Juliana”. We did not use that name and the situation got even wierder 7 years and 2 moves later when a woman called me and told me of her daughters death years earlier. It was Juliana’s mom.
Unfortunately for this mama to be, #babyunseen is still in her cozy den. Anytime would be fine, little one!
As for choosing names, we choose saint names and also try to incorporate family members. For exarmple, our son Paul Anthony is named after both of our grandfathers, but of course after saints Paul & anthony. Works out great! We’re waiting until this one arrives to announce her name, but the other kids already refer to her as such- so cute!
Any takers for Mahershalalhashbaz (Isaiah 8:3)?
@Melanie, I can totally see why your son likes “Miles”
@J. Tatum, all wonderful names. Our daughter has two middle names, Marie Patricia, which are names from both grandmothers.
@Edith Ann, Thanks! I love “Scholastica.” It just has this ancient yet strong character. The manliness blog is sure to come soon.
@Andrea, I like Faustina too. I will have to remember that one if my wife has one of the “I forgot her name” moments again!
@Stacy, using the Patron Saints Index, Fannie Mae, I could recommend Fanchea: http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-fanchea-of-rossory/
@Perinatal Loss Nurse: and there is GI Joe! I totally agree though; it would be hard to accomplish via mail. Btw, thank your husband for his service.
@Dwija: I hope your delivery goes well. On the positive side, you could be pregnant in this Texas heat!
We have 5, Isaac James, Joshua Vincent, Adeline Clare, Levi Christopher, and Caleb Joseph.
James and Vincent are both saints but really they come from Dh and my’s fathers, respectively. Isaac and Joshua were, at the time, the only names we could agree upon. Adeline we chose after having the name Bailey Katherine on the sideburner for so long and Clare is after St. Clare. Levi Christopher was intentionally “OT Saint” and Caleb Joseph we named because my husband finally acquiesced to the name Caleb, and Joseph was from both St. Joseph and my grandfather.
Having not been raised Catholic, I was named after the TV show “Kate & Allie”. I never thought much of it until I went to college, where my roommate was named Kate. It’s a small school, and they tend to do some fun things when matching roommates (all the Matts in the freshman class end up on one floor for maximum confusion). Both of our parents apparently thought of the show when naming us, so move in day was grand fun. ^_^
Just found this post linked to on Dwija’s FB page. Baby names are such fun and being Catholic makes it even more fun because there are tons of really cool saint’s names out there for inspiration. We like variations of names. For example…my husband’s father is John Charles. He, as the first son, was named Sean Charles because it was an Irish form of John. So he was a junior, without being a Junior, see what I mean? So when our first son came along, we looked for other variations of John (Ian, Ivan, Jean) and decided on Zane Charles (which is an Old English form of John). One of my daughters is named after the Blessed Virgin with the Welsh form of Mary as a middle name (Mai…pron. my, not may). People may say that choosing a saint’s name is boring, but I think they just aren’t thinking outside the box.
P.S. Did you know Msgr. Petru when he was there in Victoria? He’s my mom’s uncle.