Names and Name Days

[Cojuanco]

Okay, at my baptism I was named after Saints Marius, John the Baptist, and Charles (not sure which one, whether it was Bl. Charles the Great or St. Charles Borromeo); my confirmation name was after St. Francis of Assisi. What, then, would my name-day be?

 

[MarkThompson]

It relates to your given name. If your name is something like Mario Juan-Carlos Ramirez, with a confirmation name of Francisco, then your name-saint is San Mario and his feast day is January 19.

 

[Maria_Margaret]

So that means that in heaven, we’ll be called by our baptismal name? Or, the one we were given at birth, if we didn’t receive our baptism until adulthood and already ‘had’ our name? We wouldn’t be called our confirmation name? Thank you to whoever answers this.
~Maria

 

[MarkThompson]

So that means that in heaven, we’ll be called by our baptismal name? Or, the one we were given at birth, if we didn’t receive our baptism until adulthood and already ‘had’ our name? We wouldn’t be called our confirmation name? Thank you to whoever answers this.
~Maria

I don’t think we have that information. I just know that in cultures where the name-day is recognized, it’s the person’s given name, not his confirmation name. This is why even young children who have not yet been confirmed have a name-day celebration.

Certainly, I think it would be up to the person to decide to commemorate his confirmation name instead of his given name if he really wanted to. If you’re a convert to Catholicism and your birth name is “Luther Wesley Jones,” I think you’d have to go by a confirmation name if you wanted to celebrate a name-day at all. And some people hate their first name and are universally called by their middle name, so if their middle name is a saint’s name I guess maybe they could celebrate on that saint’s day. But those would not be the traditional approach.

 

[ProVobis]

Okay, at my baptism I was named after Saints Marius, John the Baptist, and Charles (not sure which one, whether it was Bl. Charles the Great or St. Charles Borromeo); my confirmation name was after St. Francis of Assisi. What, then, would my name-day be?

I understand Hallmark still creates a card for name-days. It’s not very popular in the U.S. but when I lived in London I used to get a name-day card every year.

 

[edwest2]

My father would get a name day card every year. Sometimes, his friends would come over for a brief celebration. Tradition matters.

Peace,
Ed