Sinful names used by parents

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anneramones

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Do you consider names like Artemis, Persephone, Athena, Aoife, which are quite popular among girls nowadays, to be sinful? They are the names of goddesses, mythological or religious figures that were worshipped,to whom people made vows and sacrifices … Wouldn’t be an offense to God to give a daughter the name of a goddess? or a son the name of a god?
 
No, i don’t consider it sinful Nor do my Greek Orthodox friends who use those names.
 
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anneramones said:
Artemis, Persephone, Athena, Aoife,
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Aoife is the Gaelic form of Eve.




Athena is the feminine of Athanasius, there are many saints by that name.

While there is no formal St Persephone, I’m going to guess no priest will balk at baptizing little Persephone Grace or Persephone Marie or Persephone Rose, etc.
 
I must live under a rock. I’ve never known a person with any of those names.
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I think many of us have heard colloquially that in the “old days” priests would want parents to use a saint’s name for a child’s name. There are a lot of obscure saints names, though! I don’t think many priests would presume to tell parents anything like that nowadays though.
 
I think the bigger “sin” are the parents who burden their children with extremely weird spellings of their first names; way more often for Girls. I think you sentence more of them to a lifetime of spelling or explaining their names than making them feel unique. To be clear I’m not talking about names like Kathy, Marc, or Bryan.
 
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I want to name my daughter Leia Terese if I have one… I’ve always liked the idea of naming a kid after characters and saints. Or neither if you find names you like specifically!
I don’t think that it’s a sin. Especially as some members pointed out that it could be a variation of a Saint name. Now, naming a kid Beelzebub is a little different I’d imagine…
 
Not at all.

Example given, the name “Martin” is derived from the roman God “Mars”, and has been held by several saints and popes.
 
My paternal grandmother liked odd spellings. And one of my uncles is my godfather. It ended up taking three times for the baptismal certificate to be right.
 
anneramones said:
Wouldn’t be an offense to God to give a daughter the name of a goddess? or a son the name of a god?
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St. Paul’s answer seems to have been No, it wouldn’t. He never asked Apollos to change his name. After working with Paul in Ephesus, during his long teaching mission there, Apollos later became the first bishop of Corinth, according to Jerome.
 
No. I don’t think so. They’re just nice names.

Aoife is not a goddess though. She is a warrior princess in Irish legend.

Many Irish girls are named Aoife.
 
The names aren’t sinful in themselves and a parent could name their kids god names with no sinful intention. Also depends on the god. Naming your kid after Venus/Aphrodite (basically the goddess of lust), Cupid/Eros (another lust god), or Jupiter/Zeus (big time rapist in addition to being king of the gods), is pretty questionable if you ask me. Names like Diana/Artemis (virgin goddess of the hunt) or Proserpina/Persephone (queen of the underworld) seem more appropriate and adaptable to Christianity.
 
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Pope John II started the practice of popes changing their names. His birth name was Mercurius. Notably, though he thought it best to change his name when he was elected Pope, he had been a Christian and a priest before that (and one beloved enough to be elected to the papacy) under his original name.

Pope John II - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
 
There was a bishop named Lucifer of Cagliari. That name probably wouldn’t fly today. 😁
 
The intent of the parents and why they’re giving them the name would probably have a lot to do with it. Sometimes they’re revived because they’re old family names or the parents just really like the name and whether or not it was previously a god or goddess is only a footnote or bit of trivia to them.

If parents are practicing neo-paganism or specifically assign names out of interest in the pagan aspect and that’s passed on to the child, then that would be a problem. Though in that case it’s highly unlikely that the parents are serious Christians/Catholics in the first place.

I imagine some kid named Zeus would be teased horribly, unless he happened to be a very large kid with the build of the aspiring pro-football player sort.
 
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A lot of traditional greek names are beautiful to me. Penelope, Melissa, Cassandra, Persephone
 
Naming a child one of those names isn’t sinful. For various reasons, maybe annoying but not a sin.
 
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You’re lucky. Aoife is a pretty name.

We chose Xena for our Warrior Princess here in the US. And she wasn’t even American.
 
I think it would only be sinful if you were specifically naming the girl after the goddess.

And if people are concerned, that’s why we have middle names. The kid can always receive a Christian middle name. 😉
 
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