One of the most exciting, and important, parts of having a child is deciding on a name.
Now, there are the typical arguments. Before my daughter was born last year, my husband and I argued endlessly about names. He hated the names I suggested, and I hated the ones he suggested. Yet, both of us realized deeply the importance of having a good, Christian name. A name is more than just a word. A name is a label that has depth and meaning.
Perhaps my intense concern with the meaning of names (and words) comes from the slightly cruel meaning of my birth name, Amarissa Leila. (I have since changed it to something less offensive…and more pronounceable.) The name Amarissa means “promised of God”. Innocent enough. However, the name Leila means “dark angel” or “dark beauty.” It comes from the same Hebrew root and pronunciation as the name Lilith, a name that has evil connotations in Hebrew mythology.
In Hebrew mythology, Lilith was Adam’s first wife. As the legends go, Lilith belonged to an order of lower demons and mated with Adam during the time in which he wandered the garden alone. Eventually, she left Adam and the Garden of Eden, having refused to submit to Adam as a man or God as a deity. Throughout literature, she is seen as the mother of vampires, the Queen of the Damned.
I guess I never really recovered from that. So when my husband and I argued over baby names, it never revolved around the way the name “sounded,” but always around what the name “meant.”
Eventually, we settled on a name, and we decided to use Rose as our daughter’s middle name. St. Rose of Lima was considered by others to be beautiful by all those who saw her. However, she had dedicated her heart to Jesus as a young girl. One legend says that to prevent people from admiring her beauty instead of the glory of God, she rubbed pepper on her face to cause it to blister.
This story touched us both. We wanted our daughter to be humble, beautiful in the eyes of God. We wanted our daughter to grow up knowing that she shared her name with St. Rose. We wanted her to have a positive role model in her name.
What stories do you have about the naming of your children? How did you decide about the name? Do you know what the meaning of your children’s names are?
Melissa is currently preparing for her angel’s first birthday, to be celebrated at the end of September. You can find her blogging about babies and couponing at And Baby Makes Three…
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I love her name!
My son was named after his father and grandfathers. My girls were both named after saints.
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Lovely choice for your daughter! We also chose Saints for our son and daughters names, first and middle names. And we will start a tradition in a few years once they are older (they are only 2yo and 6 weeks old) where we celebrate their Saints’ Feast Day, with a special dinner, and maybe a small gift, and we can say a special prayer and talk about the life of their Saint.
I always took naming the kids seriously. However, I didn’t name our two oldest (our kids are all adopted). They were old enough that they knew their names. They weren’t names I would have chosen, but they weren’t offensive or non-Christian, so we just changed their middle names.
I had a love/hate relationship with my own name. It typically gets mis-pronounced as “Elsie”, and I was named after a nun. Really. How uncool is that as a teenager?! LOL. Now, I love my name.
So timely, considering the struggles we’re going through naming our fourth.
There are names one of us love but the other can’t stand simply because we have known someone with that name who, well, we didn’t get along with.
My favorite story is about my daughter. She’s named after our maternal grandmothers; the names just flowed together beautifully. One of them passed away not long before she came along, and the other lives very close to where we deliver, and so we’ve gotten to spend a good deal of time with her. The fact that her namesake is a child with Down’s just makes it all more special.
Beautiful name and story! My son’s name was picked for the meaning which is “Disciple of God”; that’s my prayer for him.
And his two middle names are after his 2 grandfathers, one of which is Anthony, also a Saint we love around here! 
Excellent post! It’s something my husband and I talk about a lot–it seems some people just name their kids whatever they see around them. Chair, River, Stone.
We give out children the names of saints so they, too, can grow up knowing they have a special friend in Heaven that will pray for them. And the middle name is after a saint as well.
When I converted to the Catholic faith, I thought, “Huh…I don’t think there’s a St. Delena.” After doing some research, however, I did find out that “Delena” is a take-off of St. Mary Magdalene.
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We wanted our first daughter to have a Marian name so we went with Miriam and then her middle is Goretti, also after a young woman who dedicated herself to God at an early age. Service to God, Chastity, Trust were the themes of these womens lives. We wanted her to have those foundational names to try to model her life after those wonderful saintly women. Our son is Joseph Kolbe, after two men who understood God’s calling in their life and chose to lead their life serving God and His Son. St. Joseph served Mary and Jesus and died with them at his side, what a lovely way to go! And St. Maximilian Kolbe took the place of another man who had a family he hoped to make it home to. Faith, Hope, and Trust were the themes of these mens lives. We hope our children always seek to live their lives like their namesakes did.
I’m with you on the importance of the meaning of the names we give our children. Rose is a beautiful name and one I chose for my daughter’s middle name. Great article!
I have a very different name, and I always loved it. My kids have very unique names but with Catholic saints for their middle names. That way we get the best of both worlds! Great post! Thank you!
My boys are all named after grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Their names are also saint names. Since I have twins we celebrate their saint’s feast day as a way for them to each have a special day apart from their birthday. We have Leo Patrick, Joseph Warren and Oliver Michael.