Do you celebrate your name day?

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Contra_Mundum_1

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In some countries this is quite popular, and I’d love to hear if you celebrate it as well. My given name is not in the Catholic calendar, so I celebrate my confirmation name. My ‘celebration’ involves going to Mass 😃
 
My given name is Ian, an Celtic version of John… oddly enough, I’ve always had an inexplicable love for St. John the Baptist! Now, since there’s no St. Ian (yet ;)), I will celebrate my confirmation saint’s day with joy. Since I wasn’t baptised yet when it last occurred (Jan. 28), we’ll have to see just what happens next year…

I suppose I’ll probably have a black-and-white cupcake in honour of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Dominican ideals. Later in the day, some reading of a particular article of the Summa Theologiae, then I’ll say all the prayers he wrote before I go to bed. Might as well light special candle, kept burning throughout the day, too! Perhaps I’ll light it under my crucifix at 12 AM Jan. 28 and extinguish it at 11:59 PM, to remind me of how my baptismal/confirmation patron enlightened us about our Lord Jesus Christ and His nature.
 
Contra_Mundum said:
In some countries this is quite popular, and I’d love to hear if you celebrate it as well. My given name is not in the Catholic calendar, so I celebrate my confirmation name. My ‘celebration’ involves going to Mass 😃
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Im in the same boat. My first given name (“Marie” is my middle name) is not in the calendar, so celebrate my confirmation name. Not always possible for me to make it out to Mass (it falls in the middle of winter and I dont drive), but I do celebrate it. 🙂

With my middle name, well let’s just say that my devotion to Our Lady is a constant in my life and I do have a particular attraction to Our Lady of Fatima. But it’s not limited to that Marian apparition.
 
yes because St. Anne’s feastday is also the weekend we celebrate Christmas in July with the family, since nobody can travel in the winter. it is also the weekend we celebrate July and August birthdays
 
My saint is John the Baptist, and his feast was last week on June 24 I believe.

I was not able to get to Mass, but would have if I could have.

Well, there’s always next year.
 
My real name is a female version of John, so its hard to pick one of the many saints with that name. I could technically choose St Jane Frances de Chantal as that is the closest to my given name of Janet.

I could choose Rose of Lima for my user name or even St Therese of Lisieux (The Little Flower) too…

I don’t celebrate my saint’s day though.
 
No, I’m afraid I don’t. I didn’t grow up observing any kind of name day tradition, and when I was named and baptized my Methodist parents didn’t even know there was a saint with my name (“Aelred Minor” is pure pseudonym), and I really don’t feel much connection to the saint that I am named for, except that he was a Jew with a Greek name, and I am a little Jewish and not at all Greek that I know of (there is a dubious geneology out there according to which I would be a descendent of a Byzantine imperial family as well as seemingly half the monarchs of Medieval Europe, but even if it were true that Byzantine family was actually of Armenian rather than Greek origin)
 
In Hungary, and l believe all over the former Austria-Hungarian empire the name-day is more important that the birthday. The name-day is celebrated on the workplaces exclusively, and at home people celebrate either the name-day and the birthday. The birthday was considered pagan celebration, the name-day the Christian one.
 
As I understand it, celebrating name-day’s is a tradition that belonged more to the Catholics of Eastern Europe and some parts of Italy.

Since it isn’t usually done in Ireland and in the part of Italy from which my family comes, no, I haven’t. However, I think its a great thing and half-wish that I did, but at this point I think it would be difficult to get much emotion into it (especially since my given name relates more to my grandfather than to any saint; my Confirmation saint is the one to whom I’m attached).
 
It’s my understanding that it is done in France. I have a French friend who told me about it. Every Jan his mother calls him and wishes him a wonderful St William’s (Guillaume)'s day
 
Celebrating the feast days of the saints of my names would require me to celebrate several times per year.

My names are Joseph and George.

The Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is on either the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas or December 30.

The Solemnity of St. Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary is on March 19.

The Optional Memorial of St. George, martyr, is on April 23 (two days before my actual birthday). This year it was impeded by Holy Saturday.

If any of them fall on Wednesday or on a Sunday when they won’t be impeded I hope to in the future try and go to their Masses (on other weekdays I’m not able to make it to the Masses).
 
There’s no Saint Jonathan, and I never really thought about the Feast of St John (the Apostle). My Confirmation Saint is Augustine of Hippo. Interestingly enough my birthday is the feast day of a different St. Augustine.
 
It is common among the Irish and Italians in our extended family to name the baby for the saint of the day, on the traditional calendar. We have two Patrick Josephs born on March 18, one Italian, one Irish-Italian.
 
I was not raised Catholic and had to choose between the three saints of my name (I have a middle name, too, but feel no connection to it or the saint), and I celebrate my name day on the feast of Rosa of Lima (“normal” name Isabella Flores).
I decided on Rosa and not on the two other saints of the name Isabella because the other two had a rather franciscan spirituality, and that does not appeal to me in particular.
I go to mass and try to spend some extra time in prayer during the day, and close friends congratulate me.
 
foreveradoreHim said:
There’s no Saint Jonathan, and I never really thought about the Feast of St John (the Apostle). My Confirmation Saint is Augustine of Hippo. Interestingly enough my birthday is the feast day of a different St. Augustine.
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I believe “John” is a form of the name Jonah, not Jonathan.
 
I don’t do a lot for myself, and DH isn’t Catholic so he wouldn’t buy me a present etc. I do go to Mass, but my name saint is one of my all time top favourite saints anyway, so even if I weren’t named after her I’d still do that.

I try to make a bit of a fuss for my daughter’s name day (she’s only had one so far), and I’m sure I would do the same for subsequent children: go to Mass with her, light her baptismal candle in the evening, read a Bible story with her saint in it, buy her a small present.

When I lived in France I got pressies!
 
So what are you supposed to do on the name day? What sort of celebrating? My fiancee’s mother gets gifts and a cake as if it is her bday. They are Mexican. I never heard of this practice before. I grew up in an Irish American family and we didn’t do anything like that.
 
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