Association Of Catholic Bloggers

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!

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 !

I was named after a tugboat. Seriously. I was born in the late 1950s and many girls I went to high school with shared that tugboat’s name: Cheryl Ann. Apparently in the mid 1950s there was a popular show called “Waterfront” which starred Preston Foster as the captain of the L.A. Harbor tugboat. To this day, whenever I run across a woman who appears to be around my age and whose name is Cheryl, I can almost be certain that her middle name is Ann. In fact, I spoke at a recent conference and while signing books was asked by a woman if my own middle name was Ann. Her nametag identified her as a “Cheryl” and we immediately connected. A chuckle erupted between us and our heads nodded in agreement. Yep, we were each Cheryl Ann. How we choose to name our children is important. In her new book “The Catholic Baby Name Book,” Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur takes that importance very seriously.  With more than 10,000 names, Fagnant-MacArthur covers a lot of ground. Flipping through the pages I f...