Name Your Babe

Catholic Hub posted this story from Omaha on baby names.

That’s the only restriction on names, said Deacon Robert “Jerry” Overkamp, JCL, judge on the Metropolitan Tribunal. “Lucifer, Satan, those kinds of names are prohibited, but all of the current ‘in’ names like Skyler, Montana and Dakota, none of those are prohibited any more.”

Though the restrictions on naming a child have been lifted, using a name of Christian origin is a still a good idea and can help to carry on tradition, said Father Gerald Gondringer, pastor of St. Mary Parish in West Point, St. Aloysuis Parish in Aloys, St. Boniface Parish in Monterey and St. Anthony Parish in St. Charles Township.

Just the other day, Parents magazine showed up with a piece giving name suggestions. Let ride with that synchronicity and see if it extends to the comment boxes.

Parents suggests botanical, place names, Biblical, Shakespeaean names, and even words spelled backward (Heaven into Nevaeh). This is a potentially ripe harvest. If he hadn’t become obsessed with renaming himself after Yoko Ono, John might have mined this revolutionary territory long ago, right?
But my pet peeve on the article? Can you guess? No space names.

Sure, a few of the Shakespearean names have been attached to the moons of Uranus, like Bianca. Maybe some hockey geek would like to cover “manly,” “Shakespearean” and “space” and name a kid Puck. (Though I sure wouldn’t want to be around if they sing that banana-fana-fo song about him.) There are some really nice spacey names out there: Elara, Miranda, Larissa, Charon. I could see football players named for Mars’ moons Deimos and Phobos. (Translation from the Greek: terror and fear)
Seriously, if parents insist on giving their sons or daughter two non-saint names, at least choose a patron saints, and if you must, leave it off the birth certificate. Otherwise, no problem with naming a kid Elden or the like. Here’s what they do for the Eucharistic Prayer in Nebraska:

A good example of that, according to Father Gondringer, is Archbishop Elden Francis Curtiss. To date, there is not a saint with the name Elden, hence the reason he asks priests to use his full name – Elden Francis – during the Eucharist prayer.

In looking over the names, I was interested to see that my daughter’s name, once popular in the 90’s, had dropped off the top ten list by 2000.

Any good backward names out there?