Catholics and Names

[Shabbers]

Okay so...

I'm Pagan, my husband is Catholic (though not a very good one, he hasn't been to Mass more than 3-4 times in the last 11 years!) Nonetheless, it is important to him that our child be baptized Catholic and raised as such - go to Catholic schools, etc. (I don't think I'm pregnant yet, but we're TTCing like mad, and this month looks really good so far.)

The question is whether the Church would have a problem with the names we've picked out. If it's a girl, her name will definitely be Athena. If it's a boy, we're leaning toward Solomon though it's not official.

I thought I remembered somewhere that Catholic babies are supposed to be named after saints? Or is that just a common custom, rather than Official Rules? Will there be a problem naming our daughter after a prechristian Goddess? (I think Solomon would be more acceptable, even though it's OT not NT) Will she get teased about it if she goes to Catholic School, or get flack for it from the nuns?

I have zero first-hand experience with any sort of Christianity, so any advice would be welcome!

(We're also having trouble finding someone who would qualify to be a godparent - all our Catholic friends and family are just as lapsed as my husband is. But that's a different thread.)

[annettemarie]

All canon law requires is that the name is not contrary to Christian beliefs.
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0410qq.asp

[annettemarie]

Also, there is a St. Athena. Her feast day is September 1 and she was a virgin martyr. So WIN! And King Solomon is in the Bible. And there actually aren't that many nuns in Catholic schools anymore.

[Bluegoat]

What strikes me as much more of a problem is that you are going to have to promise to raise your kids as Catholics. Since your dh is the one pushing this, you might want to ask him what that means to him. He will likely have to go to Mass much more often to really fulfill that promise.

[Shabbers]

Hmm...looks like St. Athena is Orthodox, not Roman Catholic (as far as I can tell) - she's not listed in any of the RC saint lists I can find.

http://www.americancatholic.org/feat...ts/ByName.aspx

http://saints.sqpn.com/saints-a/

Nada

[annettemarie]

Seriously, unless you dress her in a Greek toga and hand her an owl and tell everyone you named her after a Greek goddess, I don't think they're going to make an issue of it. It's not like you're naming her Goddess. There have been lots of people named Athena who have nothing to do with Greek gods.

[Shabbers]

Originally Posted by Bluegoat

What strikes me as much more of a problem is that you are going to have to promise to raise your kids as Catholics. Since your dh is the one pushing this, you might want to ask him what that means to him. He will likely have to go to Mass much more often to really fulfill that promise.

Yeah, I've told him this, and he says "We'll see." *sigh* I'm personally fine with it, despite my disagreement with the RC church on many issues I also know that they have many good aspects and I don't have a huge issue with raising my kid with those beliefs, even though I don't share them. But I don't like the idea of making a promise to any god (even one I don't personally worship) with the idea of breaking it. So if he wants a Catholic child, he's going to have to model that as well, whether he likes it or not!

[annettemarie]

Also, what's her middle name going to be? You can always stick a saint/Bible name there.

[elmh23]

My daughter goes to Catholic school (pre-k through 8.) Her pre-k class has 11 kids and there aren't a lot of "Catholic" names in there. I can only think of 3 that have names that have been traditionally used by Catholics (Sarah, Joseph and William.) All the other kids have "trendy" names for the most part. I really doubt Athena would get made fun for not being Catholic enough.

And also, there are 16 Catholic schools in our diocese and I think only one or two has any nuns at all (and they might have 2-3 in the entire school.) My daughters school is run 100% by lay people with the help of the priests.

[Tradd]

Yes - middle name! I went to Catholic school and had a bunch of female classmates that had non-saint first names. But when I saw the yearbook, I saw lots of the girls had some variation of Mary/Marie/Ann for their middle name.

[CherryBomb]

Like someone else said, your dh's infrequent Mass attendance would probably be more of a problem than the name. It probably wouldn't hurt for him to talk with a priest about it ahead of time.

[CherryBomb]

Oh, and my first two kids were born before we converted, their names are Bailey Ramone and Riley Avalon, very un Catholic names Our third was born after we became Catholic, her name is Rory Catherine. Never been an issue, honestly.

[Fay]

Originally Posted by Shabbers

Hmm...looks like St. Athena is Orthodox, not Roman Catholic (as far as I can tell) - she's not listed in any of the RC saint lists I can find.

http://www.americancatholic.org/feat...ts/ByName.aspx

http://saints.sqpn.com/saints-a/

Nada

If St. Athena was martyred during the Roman Empire, then that was before the Orthodox & Catholic churches split, so she's a Catholic saint, too. But hundreds of saints were removed from the Catholic list back in the 1960s because there wasn't enough historical evidence for their existence. However...it's still a traditional Catholic name, popular in the Mediterranean! The fact that your DH is no longer practicing will be a much bigger problem than the child's name. He needs to talk to a priest about it, and both of you will probably have to attend a baptism class.

[mntnmom]

DH went to Catholic school all the way through. His best friend was named "Manjula" he was from Sri Lanka, and his family didn't convert until he was in High School. There are a lot of kids in Catholic schools from other traditions, not to mention converts who don't necessarily adopt a "christian name".
I have to chime in on asking your DH what he means by raising them Catholic. Will you still celebrate Sabbats as a family? Will Mary or Demeter sit on the family Altar? Will they do catecism(sp)? Will he insist they get confirmed? In that case there is a heavy burden on the parents( YOU) to make sure they go to Mass etc, atleast until they are confirmed. I am also a Pagan, who married into a Catholic family. But my DH refused to be confirmed, and has no intention of raising the kids Catholic.
Is this internal to him, or is there pressure from the family? It doesn't sound like he's too serious about his faith, why is this important to him?
Good Luck

[AllyRae]

I'm pretty sure the Catholic church doesn't care what you name your kids, as long as you're not naming him Satan or anything like that. : None of my kids were named after saints, and they were all baptized into the church with no problems. : )

[plunky]

The saints thing you're thinking of is probably relating to confirmation. Your confirmation name must be the name of a saint. Your kid can pick that out when they're in high school, assuming they're still Catholic at that point.

[AllyRae]

Do they even still do confirmation names? In 1999 when I was confirmed, they said it was falling out of practice and was optional. But I went through the adult RCIA program, so maybe it's different for 8th graders?

[Shabbers]

Originally Posted by mntnmom

DH went to Catholic school all the way through. His best friend was named "Manjula" he was from Sri Lanka, and his family didn't convert until he was in High School. There are a lot of kids in Catholic schools from other traditions, not to mention converts who don't necessarily adopt a "christian name".
I have to chime in on asking your DH what he means by raising them Catholic. Will you still celebrate Sabbats as a family? Will Mary or Demeter sit on the family Altar? Will they do catecism(sp)? Will he insist they get confirmed? In that case there is a heavy burden on the parents( YOU) to make sure they go to Mass etc, atleast until they are confirmed. I am also a Pagan, who married into a Catholic family. But my DH refused to be confirmed, and has no intention of raising the kids Catholic.
Is this internal to him, or is there pressure from the family? It doesn't sound like he's too serious about his faith, why is this important to him?
Good Luck

This is internal to him. And I'm not sure why it's so important to him - except I think that he sees Catholicism as a sort of ethnicity that he wants to pass on to the wee one, rather than as a system of beliefs. He says he wants to give the kid a spiritual framework that they can then accept or reject later, rather than being raised in a completely secular home like I was - and he doesn't trust other religions, he feels that because Catholicism is one of the oldest current faiths it's therefore the best, and those "johnny-come-lately" prottys with only 400 years or so behind their belts are hardly worth considering.

Yeah, I know. It doesn't make sense to me, either.

We don't celebrate the Sabbats as a family - I celebrate them alone. I would continue to do so, though I would teach the child "This is what *I* believe" if they should ask.

[Adele_Mommy]

Originally Posted by Shabbers

Yeah, I've told him this, and he says "We'll see." *sigh* I'm personally fine with it, despite my disagreement with the RC church on many issues I also know that they have many good aspects and I don't have a huge issue with raising my kid with those beliefs, even though I don't share them. But I don't like the idea of making a promise to any god (even one I don't personally worship) with the idea of breaking it. So if he wants a Catholic child, he's going to have to model that as well, whether he likes it or not!

Before we had a child my dh had told me he would like the child baptized Catholic (RC). I expressed my concern about making a promise I had no intention of keeping, and he told me the parents don't actually promise anything. The godparents make all the promises and they make them on behalf of the baby. Maybe this is only true in certain churches or maybe my dh was misremembering his Catholic upbringing, but that is definitely what he told me. I never actually found out because we did not end up getting my dd baptized. Turns out the only reason my dh wanted to do that (he is not Catholic at all anymore - not even a little bit) was because it would make his mother happy, and she died before we had kids, so it became a non-issue.

[elanorh]

I have a good friend named Athena, born and raised Catholic in Montana of all places. I'm pretty sure her mother had Athena the Greek goddess in mind when she named her, too. The names really shouldn't be a problem. They may be a problem with some hidebound person who doesn't know the doctrine, but not with the priest.

I agree that the larger issue is the fact that you'd need to raise your children Catholic. The priest or deacon at the baptismal class is probably going to have a much larger issue with the fact that your dh is the Catholic, and dh doesn't attend mass (I'm assuming the rare occasion has been while visiting family)....

Godparents are supposed to aid in raising the children Catholic, as is the entire parish and Body of the Church as a whole -- but the parents are the ones responsible for the bulk of it, for getting kids to mass and supporting their spiritual growth. So the priest is likely to want to discuss with your dh, how he plans to accomplish this.

I have many friends who went to Catholic schools going up, sometimes even occasionally attended mass, but are not Catholic and were not Catholic then either. I wonder how your dh would feel about going that route -- if your child is going to a Catholic school and occasionally attends mass, s/he can decide as s/he gets older, whether s/he wants to officially be Baptized and Confirmed (some of my friends have gone this route, some haven't).

That said there is an ethnic element to Catholicism, and he may be after that more than anything else. In that case, honestly I think the priest's individual personality will dictate whether he will be OK with baptism. My cousin was told by her parish priest that he didn't want to baptize her baby because said babe was conceived out of wedlock and the mother had since married and divorced the father (outside the Church). But, her brother had a baby out of wedlock who is being raised by his Baptist mother -- but they had the baby baptized by a Catholic priest despite the fact that the "Catholic" parent hadn't been to mass in years, and wasn't involved in raising the baby. So obviously priests' perspectives are going to vary on this issue I guess.

ETA: Godparents' status is also going to be a gray area -- some parishes want both godparents to be Catholic, some are OK with just one Catholic. Our parish (the same one where the priest had wanted to not baptize my cousin's baby) was just fine with one Godparent being Presbyterian. If you can find one Godparent who's Catholic from the same perspective as your dh ('ethnic') then that might be sufficient? But honestly I think you and your dh need to talk this through a little more, before you meet with a priest, and dh is going to need to think about what he really wants, too.