That seems to indicate that in the past, having first names from the Old Testament seemed to discouraged among Catholics.
Incidentally, in 9th century Brittany, there was a king named Salomon which is variation of the OT name “Solomon”. However, he was later canonised as “St. Salomon” thereby making “Salomon” a saint’s name as well. There was also Solomon, King of Hungary from 1063 to 1074.
Strangely enough, my paternal grandparents (the only grandparents I really knew) were named Joseph and Mary; I’m not kidding.
So when it came time to pick middle names for my two kids (my ex is Catholic) we had little debate, although kid number one has Marie as a middle name.
Up until then, I had no idea of the French (Canadian) tradition. But it worked out well for everyone.
These days, most priests really don’t care what you name your baby, as long as it’s not something way out of left field. In my church, we see non-saint names on a regular basis, eg. Quinn and Trevor and the like.
That was Pope John II né Mercurius.
In Britain a christian name is any forename[s] with which one is baptised, and used in a general sense for any forename unless of a religion not christian.
Most names derived not from the bible, but from celtic, anglo-saxon/scandinavian or norman-french roots, most of which went back to germanic origins, since all these people were cousins. Edgar or Edward are obviously saxon; William or Henry norman.
80% of men in the English high middle ages were named from about 5 names: and women even fewer. Unless one counts John, bible names didn’t come into fashion until the renaissance. Most people had only one forename back then.
And then the puritans got excited and a few started calling their kids random phrases snatched from the bible. But no-one was expected to choose a bible name, nor did we have name saints and name-days ( although no doubt some priests encouraged richer parents to dedicate their child to the protection of whichever saint the priest admired, until the Reformation ).
Interesting. So what were the key names in the high middle ages, and can you give examples of names comprising phrases from the Bible?
I’m dubious that Middle Ages names didn’t have a longer tail distribution than that but when it comes to names comprising phrases from the Bible, there’s “Elizabeth” which means “my God is an oath”* which sounds like the kind of thing that’d be in the Bible. “Emmanuel”** means “God is with us” which is pretty Bible-y. A lot of common names with the “el” sound in it are a short phrase about YHVH.
*Meaning, origin and history of the name Elizabeth - Behind the Name
** Meaning, origin and history of the name Emmanuel - Behind the Name
The key names in the Middle Ages were Richard, Robert, John, Henry, Edward, and William. Slightly less common names that popped up, usually indicating that a family had a number of sons, were Peter/Piers, Geoffrey, Hugh, Roger & Nicholas. Those accounted for about 80% of given names. It’s the reason those names have a lot of rhyming nicknames, and nicknames in general, like Bob for Robert Dick for Richard, Bill for William, and both Ned and Ted for Edward. Even the other 20% were just a few other names: Arthur, Simon, Paul, Timothy, Edmund, Thomas & Charles. The “out there” names were throw back names from before 1066, like Bardolph, Bertram, Ernold/Arnold, Hammet, Filbert, Frederick.
Women were Elizabeth, Cecily, Matilda, Joan, Beatrice, Margaret, Margery, Emma, Julia, Isabella/Isobel and Katherine. Those were 60-70% of women. Less common were Bridget, Mary, Sarah, various permutations of “Jacqueline,” “Christine,” “Eleanor,” and “Guinevere.” “Out there” women’s names were names of virtues, or names from nature, like “Rose.”
The sort of thing Puritans named their children when they got carried away were things like this passage from Jeremiah: “The LORD plans to prosper you and not to harm you.” The person would get called something like “Prosper” for short.
Ironically, in the middle ages, people didn’t get named Conner, Fletcher, Tanner, Mason, Hunter, Ta[i/y]lor, Chandler, Cooper, Colby, Fabian, Harper, or Garth, but they got* called* those things, because your village might have nine Richards, three of whom went by “Dick,” but only one of them made barrels, so he got called “Cooper.”
Hmm. Elizabeth, or Elisheva, means “G-d dwells here.” “Sheva” is sit, or rest, and has the same root as “Shabbat.” In Hebrew, the same letter can have either a V or B sound, depending on the context.
I don’t have the specific book on English names to hand, but they were William, Henry, John, Roger and Richard as far as I recall, and that’s from 1100 to 1300. After that things got a lot more diverse.
And of course, the rest had many different forenames. Walter, Baldwin, Geoffrey, Stephen, Geoffrey and Thomas all being prominent, but a load of others, including celtic and saxon names.
Female names concentrated heavily around Emma ( as in England today ), Anne, Matilda/Maud, Cecily, Elizabeth, Agnes, Joan and Isabella.
Puritan phrase names can be called slogan-names. And were much later, dying out with the Restoration. The most famous being ‘Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon’. But he had a brother, Jesus-Christ-Came-Into-The-World-To-Save, sons of Praise-God.
They kinda wore their heart on a sleeve, didn’t they.
The kids don’t seem to have been especially happy to have weird names, but then they had weird parents. Names may have been a smaller portion of their embarrassment.
Job-Raked-Out-Of-The-Ashes, actually: Job-Rakt-Out-Of-The-Asshes.
Search-The-Scriptures
Zeal-Of-The-Land
Fight-The-Good-Fight-Of-Faith
Curiosities of Puritan nomenclature, by Charles W. Bardsley; 1888 Internet Archive
And there were single puritan hortatory names, such as Humiliation ( male ), Fly-Debate, Fly-Fornication ( ‘Fornie’ ? ) [ fly in the sense of run from rather than Mosca, although I doubt 17th century schoolchildren didn’t refuse to see the difference ],
With Spengler’s warning of the Great Religiosity coming to place, I can see Abstinence, Obedience and Lament coming back in the great mid-west.
I think “fly” was pronounced the way we would pronounce “flee.”
Spelled backwards.
Fortuitously, equally annoying.
And those horrid flea-circuses were just getting popular too…
I have reopened this thread with the Moderator’s permission. Originally I was going to ask if it is true that “All male Catholics must have Joseph (or variant) as part of their name and females Mary (or variant)” was true, because I know many who have it as middle names and many who don’t. My partner (who I will call H-N, for this thread) and I got into a heated debate about this, and I finally decided to drop the subject and follow up here.
I think this thread has established this. In Quebec the Baptismal name is generally Marie or Joseph, but not always. But this also leads me to my next observation with Question.
H-N (French Canadian, specifically Franco Ontarian, from a very Roman Catholic family) has always thought his name was Hyphenated-Name Joseph Marcel Roger Lastname and not until he got his passport a few years back did he realize that Joseph was actually his first name, although his Birth Certificate has it as second, so did all his ID. His Ontario driver’s license when he had one was Hyphenated-Name Joseph Last Name. So was his health card. (The red and white one, he refused to get a green one because it had an expiry date and he moved a lot.) But somehow he got a phone call or a letter from the Passport agency that insisted he use Joseph as his first name, because despite his birth certificate saying otherwise his registration has that. Or his adoption record, I am not sure and neither is he because he was adopted, I wonder if this plays a part. He wasn’t adopted at birth, because he was born in Hamilton, ON and his family is from Northern Ontario. His father (now passed on) said "Oh English people don’t know that Joseph is always a second name, but the birth certificate people got it right.
His BC health card, his BC ID, (since he doesn’t drive) and passport are all now registered as Joseph H-N last name. It doesn’t match the birth certificate though. Thus far he has traveled only to the USA and the Caribbean without problems. Could it cause problems in the Future? All his current ID except his birth certificate matches the passport.
(Moderator: thanks for okaying this bump. But if I am veering into IMHO territory please do as you see fit.)
I’m Canadian and raised Catholic and I did get a Joseph in there, although at least it’s not first. I’m “firstname secondname Joseph surname”. I’ve always gone by my second name, which is actually what my parents intended - they just thought in sounding out the full name that “firstname secondname” flowed better than “secondname firstname”.
I’m also in BC now and all my ID - including my birth certificate - have all four names. Except my passport - it’s simply has “secondname surname”. I’ve been to a few more countries than your husband and it’s never been a problem.
(Flying domestically without a passport hasn’t been a problem, either. I buy a ticket as “secondname surname” and as long as the airline and security people see “secondname” somewhere on the driver’s license - they’re happy.)
tldr: My passport doesn’t match any of my other ID and I’ve never had a problem.
Sounds like a Canadian thing - I know Irish Catholics don’t do that, and I don’t think Latinos do either (though José and María/Mario are very popular).
Latinos don’t do it much now, but a couple of generations ago many families had Maria for all the daughters, like Maria Lourdes, Maria Teresa, Maria Cristina (to cite just a few of the names in our family)
You saw this in Austria as well, Marie Antoinette was originally Maria Antonia before she moved to France. Her sisters were Maria Amalia, Maria Anna, etc. And quite a number of men were Jose Maria (but a Latina woman would be Maria Jose)
There is even a standard abbreviation for the Maria in names, for example Ma. Luisa meaning Maria Luisa without having to spell out the whole Maria, or Luis Ma., Jose Ma., etc. My father actually wrote his name as Jose Ma. Norberto Lastname.
Actually, the standard abbreviation in Spanish is Mª, but when you’re using a typography which does not include the ª sign you can use Ma instead.
In Spanish keyboards there is a key to the left of 1, with º on the basic position and ª on shift.
Nava, I haven’t lived in a Spanish speaking country since childhood several decades ago and I had forgotten all about the superscript form for the Maria abbreviation, looking at it really brought back memories.
That is the case in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, where almost every male Muslim has Muhammad as a first name. With everybody having the same first name, it’s effectively useless as a name. It serves more as a badge of religious identity, like all the Sikhs taking the same name (Kaur or Singh). So in practice all those guys are known by their second names, and the Muhammad part is only on paper.
I’ve seen South Asians get perplexed upon meeting an Arab named Muhammad. (In Arab culture everybody gets only one given name apiece.) “Muhammad what?” “Just Muhammad.” “??? 
”
This form existed in Ireland at least, although I’ve no idea how widespread it was. The person I’m aware of is Joseph Mary Plunkett, one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising.