Can we have the Pope on for a Baby Names webchat?

Didn't know that the French had changed that. I thought it was a good idea! My friend'smum is a registrar and told me that they are not allowed to comment on either choice of name or spelling. The only time she has ever bent this rule was when the Ennis family wanted to call their son Peter. She asked if they had considered his future signature!

A girl I went to school with in Ireland was baptised Bernadette when the priest refused to believe Natasha was a Christian name. As with Marjoriew (Marjorie being a version of Margaret) it's unfortunate that there are probably a lot of ignorant priests and registrars out there. I think most priests would be happy to see anyone turning up to baptise a baby these days and would go along with the choice of name and play nice. My old parish priest even swallowed hard and went ahead and baptised a little Calvin about fifteen years ago...

I have relatives in Argentina who had to go through the courts there to give their children vaguely Irish names to honour their heritage that were not on the official approved list - probably 25-30 years ago.

In my own Irish family, there was an unspoken rule that names had to be not only Catholic but 'family' names. One cousin chose names for his DD that hit neither button and my uncle objected, 'That's not a family name,' to which cousin replied, 'Well it is now...

math, DH's family are like that and (for example) there are about ten Eves etc etc.

I refused to be drawn into that and chose names purely because I liked them. Funnily enough, other family members are choosing different names now too.

Is that different to the spanish list. when I was in spain I was told that my 'santo' was the 11 August! celebrated it a couple of times..... every 11 of august I think es mi santo hoy! quietly. to myself....

I wanted to call my son Isaac when I was pregnant. My dad was VERY baffled by that.
AND we actually have some Jewish blood on his side and he still couldn't get to grips with it.

Has the Pope considered that every name was 'new and exotic' once? Including saints' names? I mean, there could be a Saint Taneesha one day, or a Saint Chardonnay .....

Anyway, I wouldn't take much notice of what this Pope has to say about anything. Doesn't have the best track record, does he?

He sounds as if he would fit right in on the MN Baby Names topic though.

He took one look at the parents and did it with a smile. Nice old man.

I am Catholic and both of my children were baptised in the church.

They have first names that are not common however they have middle names that are the names of family members who are important to us, these name also happen to be Saints names.

Mind you I doubt very much that my parish priest would turn anyone away who wanted their baby baptised in the church, unless they wanted to name the baby Satan or suchlike!