The saintly business of naming your child
The Central Statistics Office reports that Emily and Jack are the most popular baby names in Ireland. Why are so many parents happy to gambol with the populist herd; wanting their ‘little precious’ to be just another Emily or Jack? Why aren’t they brave enough to follow their hearts and give the kids saintly names like Regina and Pious just like in the old days? But wait a minute; sure isn’t Jack the diminutive of James or John, and hence a deeply religious name? There are certainly about eight St James’, and there are so many St Johns I wouldn’t know where to begin. And the devout Emily? I am assuming that all those parents of Emilys have done the research on catholic.org and are au fait with the saintly pedigree of this moniker. So in fact, what the Central Statistics Office is really telling us is that nothing has changed. Parents are still opting for the popular saintly names.
I found three holy Emilys on the devout website – two fully sainted and one blessed, teetering on the brink of canonisation; let's just concentrate on the saints. French St. Emily de Vialar, founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition in the 1830s. She was a good, all round type of gal who would never let the hockey team down. “The physical energy and achievements of St. Emily de Vialar are the more remarkable in that from her youth she was troubled by hernia, contracted characteristically in doing a deed of charity," we are told. The deed of charity is not described. It may be safely locked away in the Vatican; perhaps with the Third Secret of Fatima; who knows? A French contemporary, St. Emily de Rodat, also founded an order of nuns called the Congregation of the Holy Family of Villefranche. Obviously not a risk taker like Emily de Vialar, there is no record of de Rodat being troubled by hernia. Already though, I am feeling the chill winds of ‘uncoolness’ that will ruffle the bouffants of modern little Emiliys as they 'step out'. Let’s hope they have ‘cool’ second names before St. Emily de Vialar’s secret is revealed in the tabloids. What hernia induced act of charity could she have committed, and who was the lucky, or unlucky recipient?
When I sat at the wooden desk in the local convent primary school it was festooned with Virgin Marys standing on serpents, multifarious crucifixes, Sacred Hearts and other miscellaneous reminders of the faith. I was surrounded by Marys, Bernadettes, Elizabeths, Patricias, Margarets; okay, so there was the odd Donna and Linda thrown in – lucky them! Protestant girls, on the other hand, always had perfectly charming names like Wendy, Debbie or Rose – the kind of names that might crop up in Elinor Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School books.
There is no doubt about it; you can date a girl by her name. Don’t even try to lie about your age if your name is Mary or Bernadette. No matter how much Botox is holding your face together; you have to be at least fifty. I, of course, have retained my alabaster cheeks and could pass myself off as a Katelyn or a Shakira if I wanted to – I just choose not to!
As a child I coveted the name Darrell after plucky Darrell Rivers in Enid Blyton’s St. Clairs. Good, strong, two-syllable androgynous names like Robyn also appealed to me. Yet I would still hanker after some girly two-syllable names like Polly, Penny and Pippa. Once, at a French summer course, I met a girl called Daisy – up to this I had only met Daisys in books. Anyway, this Daisy, incredulously, looked like she had come straight from Sunny Brook farm. She was well upholstered with ruddy cheeks and pigtails; fetchingly offset with denim dungarees and a plaid shirt. All she was missing was her pet store heifer and a fence to lean over. A perfectly lovely girl she was though.
But back to my good self. Telling me I was called after Bernadette Soubirous - she who put Lourdes on the map - did not impress me one little bit, especially when I learned that she was a member of that exotic group of incorruptible saints – lovely! Her body is on display in a gold and glass reliquary at the Notre Dame convent at Nevers – not quite the Sleeping Beauty being in nuns’ clothes and all – but asleep she appears to be even though she has been very, very dead since 1879. I will not be making a pilgrimage to that neck of the woods anytime. But don’t take my word on it – see the picture for yourself on roman-catholic-saints.com/incorruptible-saints. I wonder what explanation Professor Richard Dawkins would offer to describe the phenomenon of these incorruptibles, or, that other terrifying manifestation of ardent faith – the stigmata – dah dah daaaah! Perhaps he would write it off as an elaborate arcane hoax passed down through generations of a single and notorious 'illuminati' type clan.
Being burdened with the name Bernadette, at one impressionable stage I actually feared that I would have the misfortune of meeting the Virgin Mary myself, just like my ill-starred namesake. This was not an experience I craved and I had made up my mind to dissuade her by telling her to feck off if she ever tried to appear to me. If she persisted, I would inform her in the strongest possible terms that I would be telling nobody about these unwanted visitations and that she would have to find another Bernadette of a more virtuous demeanour who would be worthy enough to receive her messages and dutifully pass them on to the appropriate authorities.
I had heard of some people doing an about turn and using their second names instead, but with the second name of Anne this, for me, would have been a retrograde step, as I considered Anne to be the most anodyne of names, hardly deserving to be a name at all notwithstanding her status as the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus. Not as bad though, as Rita, Nuala, Eileen, Dolores or Brigid. Now that I think of it, the most boring character in the Famous Five was the saintly, predictable, goody goody Anne. Facing up to the fact that I wasn’t a Robyn or a Darrell, a Hilary or an Evelyn (more androgyny you will notice) I remained Bernadette along with the countless other Bernadettes in my school. Things could have been worse though, and I do appreciate that I could have drowned in a tsunami of Marys.
I did have a habit of associating names with the fate of their saints. Hence, the name Joan upset me greatly, as did Cecilia, despite its prettiness – think fire and suffocation. As my sister Emer would say, “Would you be right?”
But to return to 2015; I have noticed a few worrying trends in baby names. Cora and Nora are in the ascendancy and some poor, unfortunate baby girls are going to pull the short straw and will be apoplectic with rage when they end up in a classroom with Amber, Lexi, Summer, Lola, Darcy, Paige and Scarlett. They’ll be the laughing stock of the school, and will feel the pain of earlier generations of Conceptas, Assumptas and Immaculatas. But if they do their research, they’ll have plenty of uncool mud to fling at those popular Emilys.
If I have mentioned your name in an uncomplimentary light please do not be angry with me; I didn’t give you your name; your parents did; be angry with them. Only sayin’…….
© Copyright Berni Dwan 2015
The Central Statistics Office reports that Emily and Jack are the most popular baby names in Ireland. Why are so many parents happy to gambol with the populist herd; wanting their ‘little precious’ to be just another Emily or Jack? Why aren’t they brave enough to follow their hearts and give the kids saintly names like Regina and Pious just like in the old days? But wait a minute; sure isn’t Jack the diminutive of James or John, and hence a deeply religious name? There are certainly about eight St James’, and there are so many St Johns I wouldn’t know where to begin. And the devout Emily? I am assuming that all those parents of Emilys have done the research on catholic.org and are au fait with the saintly pedigree of this moniker. So in fact, what the Central Statistics Office is really telling us is that nothing has changed. Parents are still opting for the popular saintly names.
I found three holy Emilys on the devout website – two fully sainted and one blessed, teetering on the brink of canonisation; let's just concentrate on the saints. French St. Emily de Vialar, founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition in the 1830s. She was a good, all round type of gal who would never let the hockey team down. “The physical energy and achievements of St. Emily de Vialar are the more remarkable in that from her youth she was troubled by hernia, contracted characteristically in doing a deed of charity," we are told. The deed of charity is not described. It may be safely locked away in the Vatican; perhaps with the Third Secret of Fatima; who knows? A French contemporary, St. Emily de Rodat, also founded an order of nuns called the Congregation of the Holy Family of Villefranche. Obviously not a risk taker like Emily de Vialar, there is no record of de Rodat being troubled by hernia. Already though, I am feeling the chill winds of ‘uncoolness’ that will ruffle the bouffants of modern little Emiliys as they 'step out'. Let’s hope they have ‘cool’ second names before St. Emily de Vialar’s secret is revealed in the tabloids. What hernia induced act of charity could she have committed, and who was the lucky, or unlucky recipient?
When I sat at the wooden desk in the local convent primary school it was festooned with Virgin Marys standing on serpents, multifarious crucifixes, Sacred Hearts and other miscellaneous reminders of the faith. I was surrounded by Marys, Bernadettes, Elizabeths, Patricias, Margarets; okay, so there was the odd Donna and Linda thrown in – lucky them! Protestant girls, on the other hand, always had perfectly charming names like Wendy, Debbie or Rose – the kind of names that might crop up in Elinor Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School books.
There is no doubt about it; you can date a girl by her name. Don’t even try to lie about your age if your name is Mary or Bernadette. No matter how much Botox is holding your face together; you have to be at least fifty. I, of course, have retained my alabaster cheeks and could pass myself off as a Katelyn or a Shakira if I wanted to – I just choose not to!
As a child I coveted the name Darrell after plucky Darrell Rivers in Enid Blyton’s St. Clairs. Good, strong, two-syllable androgynous names like Robyn also appealed to me. Yet I would still hanker after some girly two-syllable names like Polly, Penny and Pippa. Once, at a French summer course, I met a girl called Daisy – up to this I had only met Daisys in books. Anyway, this Daisy, incredulously, looked like she had come straight from Sunny Brook farm. She was well upholstered with ruddy cheeks and pigtails; fetchingly offset with denim dungarees and a plaid shirt. All she was missing was her pet store heifer and a fence to lean over. A perfectly lovely girl she was though.
But back to my good self. Telling me I was called after Bernadette Soubirous - she who put Lourdes on the map - did not impress me one little bit, especially when I learned that she was a member of that exotic group of incorruptible saints – lovely! Her body is on display in a gold and glass reliquary at the Notre Dame convent at Nevers – not quite the Sleeping Beauty being in nuns’ clothes and all – but asleep she appears to be even though she has been very, very dead since 1879. I will not be making a pilgrimage to that neck of the woods anytime. But don’t take my word on it – see the picture for yourself on roman-catholic-saints.com/incorruptible-saints. I wonder what explanation Professor Richard Dawkins would offer to describe the phenomenon of these incorruptibles, or, that other terrifying manifestation of ardent faith – the stigmata – dah dah daaaah! Perhaps he would write it off as an elaborate arcane hoax passed down through generations of a single and notorious 'illuminati' type clan.
Being burdened with the name Bernadette, at one impressionable stage I actually feared that I would have the misfortune of meeting the Virgin Mary myself, just like my ill-starred namesake. This was not an experience I craved and I had made up my mind to dissuade her by telling her to feck off if she ever tried to appear to me. If she persisted, I would inform her in the strongest possible terms that I would be telling nobody about these unwanted visitations and that she would have to find another Bernadette of a more virtuous demeanour who would be worthy enough to receive her messages and dutifully pass them on to the appropriate authorities.
I had heard of some people doing an about turn and using their second names instead, but with the second name of Anne this, for me, would have been a retrograde step, as I considered Anne to be the most anodyne of names, hardly deserving to be a name at all notwithstanding her status as the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus. Not as bad though, as Rita, Nuala, Eileen, Dolores or Brigid. Now that I think of it, the most boring character in the Famous Five was the saintly, predictable, goody goody Anne. Facing up to the fact that I wasn’t a Robyn or a Darrell, a Hilary or an Evelyn (more androgyny you will notice) I remained Bernadette along with the countless other Bernadettes in my school. Things could have been worse though, and I do appreciate that I could have drowned in a tsunami of Marys.
I did have a habit of associating names with the fate of their saints. Hence, the name Joan upset me greatly, as did Cecilia, despite its prettiness – think fire and suffocation. As my sister Emer would say, “Would you be right?”
But to return to 2015; I have noticed a few worrying trends in baby names. Cora and Nora are in the ascendancy and some poor, unfortunate baby girls are going to pull the short straw and will be apoplectic with rage when they end up in a classroom with Amber, Lexi, Summer, Lola, Darcy, Paige and Scarlett. They’ll be the laughing stock of the school, and will feel the pain of earlier generations of Conceptas, Assumptas and Immaculatas. But if they do their research, they’ll have plenty of uncool mud to fling at those popular Emilys.
If I have mentioned your name in an uncomplimentary light please do not be angry with me; I didn’t give you your name; your parents did; be angry with them. Only sayin’…….
© Copyright Berni Dwan 2015
