Confirmation Names...

[nicolep]

Mary Magdalene - not only Jesus’ disciple and sinner who turned her life around (much like me, I was baptized, received first Communion and confirmed at 26), but it was also my grandmother’s first and middle name. My grandma passed away about a year or so before I joined the Church.

 

[hudson]

I was confirmed around 15 years ago and do not remember my Saints name. Does the Church that my confirmation keep up with this information? If not what do I do?

 

[nicolep]

I was confirmed around 15 years ago and do not remember my Saints name. Does the Church that my confirmation keep up with this information? If not what do I do?

If you don’t remember the name, you were probably confirmed with your given name.

 

[mfrances]

You know, I tried to choose Francis, but was told I couldn’t choose the name of a saint of the opposite sex. This all happened very last minute and I ended up getting “assigned” the confirmation name Alexandria after the martyrs of Alexandria. Since what was assigned to me had no special significance for me (and because it’s not a single person/saint to read about and learn about), I never had any great attachment to my confirmation name.

Recently, I’ve taken a liking to St. Joseph and ask him to pray for me nightly. Mainly because I started asking for his intervention in my greatest hour of need (unemployed, forced to sell the house, and then later needed to find a new home) and my prayers were answered. So now that things are better for me, I say prayers of thanks for his interceding for me in the past. Plus, my own father died years ago so it’s kind of a way to talk to a father figure. I keep the St. Joseph medal with me at all times.

I chose Francis, but for the ceremony was asked to feminize the name to Francisca.

 

[GloriousOrder]

I was baptised and confirmed within the space of an hour on April 23, so I thankfully was able to choose my own patron. “Thomas” is my own, but everyone debates whether it was in honour of Aquinas or the doubting Apostle. Either way, both are great inspirations, and my ‘favourite’ Apostle is Thomas, without any shadow of a doubt. His cynical-sounding attitude, but with a true faith hidden beneath, is exactly what I usually fall into.

As an atheist, there is a lot of comfort in seeing one of the Apostles say “unless I see the marks in his hands and in his feet, I will not believe”! Here I was converted… by John 20.

 

[puzzleannie]

Do
When I was confirmed 20 years ago, our priest did not force us to choose Confirmation names during the preparation classes, and to be honest I don’t ever recall him or our catechists asking us to research saints to choose one. So, as far as I know, no one in my class chose a Confirmation name including myself.
e.

nobody has ever been “forced” to choose a new confirmation name, although at times I imagine a convert with an overtly anti-Christian given name was strongly urged to do so, or even assigned a new saint name by the priest or bishop.

The emphasis now seems to be on learning about your baptismal saint name, which often requires extensive research if your given name is not a saint, but we can usually find one for you. It is part of one class on saints during their preparation, so they may not get the message or remember it, but here we give them all a print-out on their saint(s) names at the retreat.

mine was Joan because I wanted a strong assertive character to represent me, she has been a wonderful patron, along with my baptismal saints Anne and Helen.

there is absolutely no requirement for a new confirmation name so if you are feeling left out, do some research on your baptismal saint, catholic.org has one of the best saint links. if anybody needs a link to Spanish derived names ask and I will post it when I get back to work.

 

[felicity1984]

My confirmation name is Catherine, after St. Catherine of Siena.

I was confirmed at primary school, and I can remember loads of books of various saints names being passed around. I don’t know what it was that struck me about Catherine of Siena, I was very young at the time.

I have since had a look into Catherine of Siena again and it is an inspiring and interesting read.

 

[antonivs]

nobody has ever been “forced” to choose a new confirmation name, although at times I imagine a convert with an overtly anti-Christian given name was strongly urged to do so, or even assigned a new saint name by the priest or bishop…

I had a friend who chose Herman for his confirmation name and was forced to choose a different name. Evidently St. Herman is an Orthodox saint.