“Patron Saints” seem to be a survival of the old Roman household gods, into Christianity. Some of them are logical (Joseph, the father of Jesus was a carpenter, hence St. Joseph is the patron of carpenters). But what about the less obvious patron saints? Like, is there a ptron saint of gamblers? Or of excavators? I know that there is one (St. Jude)-patron saint of “lost causes”-presumably he will lend a hand if you have busted a bolt head off on your car engine?
Well, there’s St. Agatha of Sicily, who became patron saint of bell-makers in a somewhat roundabout way: her breasts having been amputated by a scorned Roman prefect, she was often depicted carrying them around on a platter; the shape of them then apparently reminded people of a bell.
Another personal favourite is St. Expeditus , patron saint against procrastination – story goes that when he was about to convert to Christianity, the devil came to him in the form of a crow, essentially telling him ‘Why the rush? You can still convert tomorrow!’, upon which he crushed the crow beneath his feet, exclaiming ‘I’ll be a Christian today!’ (or rather, the crow likely said ‘cras, cras!’ which is Latin for ‘tomorrow’, and also a transliteration of the crow’s caw, so basically the guy just stepped on a random crow because of linguistic differences).
And should you ever be subject to a pirate attack, you should probably invoke the aid of St. Albinus of Angers.
http://saints.sqpn.com/indexsnt.htm
The above link should be helpful in finding “saints for everything”
There is one listed for gambling problems, Bernadine of Siena. Although reading the short bio I don’t know where the connection is.
Considering my username, I’ll go with St. Honorius. Several saints have baking in their patronage somewhere, but he’s specifically the patron of bakers and pastry makers, and is depicted with an oven peel bearing three loaves of bread.
darn no time to browse right now… but one of my favorites is one from fairly late, she nursed her husbands mistress who was mysterously suffering poisoning <where is that cynical smiley when you need it>
I think it was a catherine/katherine from italy or thereabouts=)
An old friend of mine, who’s a devout Catholic and a former commander of a Marine Corps artillery unit, told me once that St. Barbara is the patron saint of artillery soldiers!
Wikipedia confirms that, for whatever that’s worth.
Oh, and while the Bible never gives us the names of the two thieves who were crucified along with Jesus, tradition has given the repentant thief the name Dismas. St. Dismas is, not surprisingly, the patron saint of prisoners and of those condemned to be executed.
St Joseph (as in Mary’s husband) is the Patron Saint of Happy Deaths.
St Frances Xavier Cabrini is patron saint of both Impossible Causes and Hospital Administrators…I’m left to wonder at the connection.
St Apollonia is saddled with Toothache as a patronage.
There’s a story that goes with the connection for all of them, but with some you have to dig a bit harder. My favorite story is for Saint Fiacre. According to the Patron Saint Index this mid-600’s saint is the patron to taxi cab drivers because of a hotel.
There are some other examples from this thread that I know off the top of my head. St. Jude goes along with hopeless cases because his name is so close to Judas, the betrayer of Jesus. Apparently people got the two confused and nobody talked to St. Jude. Devotions to him were a hopeless case.
St. Joseph goes along with happy deaths because some Christian mythology says that he died in the arms of Jesus and Mary, which most Christians would deem as a good way to go.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini tried to become a nun when she was eighteen, but couldn’t because she was in poor health. When her bishop asked her to start a brand new order, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, it seemed like an answer to her prayers for the impossible. That particular order is associated with hospitals, which is what got her tied to hospital administration.
Astorian, St. Barbara also is the patroness for, among many other things, mathematicians and thunderstorms, She was also the saint I picked when I got confirmed.
I think Gestas was the other thief, who of course is patron of going out insulting the only person who can save you. 
Artillerymen have two patrons.
Saint Barbara was locked in a tower by her father while he fought (on the Wrong Side) in the Crusades. She converted to Christianity under the influence of a mason who was repairing the tower. He built a three-part window into the tower to commemorate the event.
When the father returned, he saw the window and knew what it symbolized. He put his daughter on the block and demanded she renounce the Faith. She refused and had her head removed.
Then a bolt of lightening came out of the blue sky and killed the father. In the trade this is called “A first-round hit with no bracketing.” Hence she is a patron of artillerymen. Her day is marked by redlegs around the world as a sign of international kinship.
When they are not shooting at one another.
Saint Joan of Arc of course actually used artillery and so in another patron of indirect fire.
Saint Michael the Archangel is a patron of paratroops, in that he can fly. The other patron is Saint Elmo who comes to this cause by way of being the patron of men who work in high places (chimney-sweeps, steeplejacks, and some sailors).
Saint Maurice is often cited as the patron of chaplains. He was a soldier who cut his cape in half to comfort a wounded comrade. From this we get the root word for chapel, a small cape.
And so on.
Half Man took my favorite example (although I suspect that, in that illiterate age, people simply saw the saint carrying those breasts-on-a-plate and thought they actually WERE bells).
Another supposed example is St. Elmo*, patron of mariners. He got that distinction because his torture was to have his entrails would out with a windlass. The handled wheel controlling the windlass looks like a ship’s wheel. In aret he was depicted with the windlass wheel, which was probably mistaken for a ship’s wheel. Ta-Da. There isn’t even any association of Elmo with the sea in his legend.
*“Elmo” is said to be a form of Eligius, so this might be the saint that “St. Elsewhere” is supposed to be named after.
St. Ambrose is the patron saint of beekeepers.
Gertrude of Nivelles is to be invoked against the fear of mice.
Are you a flour merchant? Call upon Honorius of Amiens.
I recommend Saints Preserve Us!: Everything You Need to Know About Every Saint You’ll Ever Need by Sean Kelly and Rosemary Rogers. The title is not quite accurate as the book is not exhaustive; it names fewer than 600 saints, but it’s quite funny. It manages to be reverent and irreverent at the same time. (Kelly used to write for National Lampoon.) It is well indexed, so you can find a saint by name, date, occupation, hobby, or illness.
The book I recommend is The Penguin Dictionary of Saints – accurate, with many descriptions of the legends. A Jewish friend clued me into this book, which has provided many hours of enjoyment.
Because of her obvious association with ordnance and, therefore, of rockets, Robert Heinlein made Saint Barbara the Patron Saint of Astronauts in his juvenile novel Space Cadet.
Sadly, no one else bought into this. The real patron saint of astronauts and aviators is St. Joseph of Cupertino, who got that hallowed office by reportedly levitating;
Michael the Archangel is the patron saint of soldiers, cops and bouncers. Soldiers, because he led God’s army against Lucifer’s uprising, cops, because he enforced the law of Heaven against Lucifer, and bouncers, because he gave Lucifer the bum’s rush out of Heaven.
And this is why someday there will be a Ste. Mossie, patron saint of the Dope. 
Entirely probable; even today, absent context, you wouldn’t generally expect someone to carry her amputated breasts around on a platter.
Actually, even for religious iconography, that’s a rather absurd picture.
All those years I went to St. Cornelius Episcopal church in Dodge City, KS, and only recently discovered that St. Corny is the patron saint of cattle!
I don’t think she was made the patron of astronauts in that book, she was mentioned as the patron saint of all who deal with high explosives, rocketmen among others. That came up when the book’s protagonist watched a horrifying accident in which several cadets and Patrol members were killed. (A jump rocket crashed)