Association Of Catholic Bloggers

I'm a week late in sharing this, but I always love learning new Irish things, and I thought you might too! My March column at CatholicMom.com has some fun info about the Irish love for Our Lady: Our Lady: Queen of Ireland . Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

I’ve long been interested in the Japanese Catholic Church — we love St. Francis Xavier in my family (and the CCC movie  Francis Xavier and the Samurai’s Lost Treasure  is a favorite), and this bit  from  The Catholic Encyclopedia  at New Advent  is amazing and so moving: “ There is not in the whole history of the Church a single people who can offer to the admiration of the Christian world annals as glorious, and a martyrology as lengthy, as those of the people of Japan .” Indeed there are huge lists of Venerables, Blesseds, and Saints who were  born in Japan  and  died in Japan  and — being that I’m always looking through the lens of Catholic names — I’ve always been interested by the fact that every single one of them has a familiar saint’s name for a first name. I know there are Japanese Catholics with Japanese names (like the aforementioned Shusaku Endo; I did actually look to see if he also had a Christian name but didn’t find one), so I’ve wondered how the idea of “Chr

Merry Christmas to all of you! And happy feast of St. Stephen! I was looking through some old posts of mine and thought any name lovers that might be reading would be interested in listening to this podcast I was featured in a year ago with the amazing Haley from Carrots for Michaelmas and Christy from Fountains of Home , chatting about Catholic baby names. A fun little diversion on a cozy day!

I wrote this article for Nameberry last year, and thought it might be helpful to post it here in case you know anyone expecting a baby in the next six weeks! I recently went back through the Nameberry archives to see what posts have been done about Christmas names and found articles listing names relating to Christmas movies (Ralphie, Zuzu) and TV specials (Linus, Virginia), seasonal foliage (Holly, Ivy), colors (Crimson, Scarlet), Elf on the Shelf names (Buddy, Nick), and, of course,  the major players  (Mary, Joseph, Emmanuel). What can be said about names relating to Christmas that hasn’t yet been said? I uncovered an untapped source of inspiration in what’s known as the  O Antiphons , the short verses recited, sung, or chanted before the part of Evening Prayer called the Magnificat in the Catholic Church in the week before Christmas Eve(December 17—23); a different one is sung on each of the seven nights. They’re called the O Antiphons because each one begins with the excl

CONFIRMATION: Anointing with Holy Oil by John Ragai (2013) via  Flickr ,  CC BY 2.0 . I wrote this piece last year for Catholic Mom, and since Confirmation season is upon us again, I thought it might be helpful to share it here, in case you know anybody making his or her Confirmation. Choosing a Confirmation name is an opportunity to choose a name that has special meaning to you, a name that will help you in your journey of faith. By choosing a saint’s name, you’re asking him or her to pray for you in a special way. Having a special connection to someone in Heaven is a big deal! Read more here .

My  recent post about the alleged lack of naming after women and moms  inspired me to write two different articles on different aspects of  the conversation — one for Catholic Mom and one for Nameberry. Both are now up! Check out  Gender inequality in naming?  at Catholic Mom and  Why So Few Girl Juniors?  at Nameberry. I'd love to hear your thoughts on both articles, either in the comments for the articles themselves, or  on my blog !

Hello all! I'm delighted to be a new member of the ACWB, and wanted to introduce myself! I'm Kate and I write about naming (baby and otherwise) from a Catholic perspective at my blog Sancta Nomina . Expectant parents, Confirmation candidates, clergy and religious, and namiacs of all kinds are very welcome! I post a name consultation every Monday; birth announcements as I receive them; articles at CatholicMom monthly and Nameberry occasionally; and various other bits of information and resources and recommendations for those who love the names of our faith as I do. I love to connect on social media as well -- all that information and anything else you'd like to know can be found here . Thank you for welcoming me!