Simcha's Guide to Naming Catholic Children

Are you a Catholic Catholic Catholic? Do you stay up at night worrying that someone you met today—the supermarket bagger, for instance, or the man who comes to do one-hour Martinizing for your gallery of squirrel taxidermy—doesn’t realize that you’re Catholic, which means that you have lost out on an opportunity to smoosh their face in your superior piety, I mean draw more souls to Christ?

Are you 100% Catholic but live outside the compound? You are utterly devoted to your faith, but you adhere to the idea that “If it’s true, it’s Catholic,” and think that beer, jeans, and David Bowie are all pretty darn true.

Girl name: Pick one name that sounds good and has nice connotations, and one saint name to cover your behind.

Boy name: Just nothing that would appeal to Gwenyth Paltrow, for goodness’ sake. Google it to make sure it’s not a reality TV star, and avoid anything that brings to mind flitting or floating. No gratuitous Celticizing.

Are you a Catholic who can name everyone in the team of attorneys who are lodging a complaint against the Pope for crimes against humanity, but keep forgetting the address of your local church?

Girl name: Something empowering and possibly devastatingly ironic. One system is to take something that makes Catholics uncomfortable, like heretics or dodgy Marian apparitions, and slyly pair it with something that would make Oliver Cromwell nod with satisfaction—so, like, Medjugorje Louise or Hans Kung Makepeace. Show that you’re resisting oppression and that you went to college.

Are you a Catholic Catholic Catholic?
Girl name: Mary
Boy name: Mary
Are you 100% Catholic but live outside the compound?
Girl name: Pick one name that sounds good and has nice connotations, and one saint name to cover your behind.
Boy name: Just nothing that would appeal to Gwenyth Paltrow, for goodness’ sake.

Are you a Catholic who can name everyone in the team of attorneys who are lodging a complaint against the Pope for crimes against humanity, but keep forgetting the address of your local church?
Girl name: Something empowering and possibly devastatingly ironic. One system is to take something that makes Catholics uncomfortable, like heretics or dodgy Marian apparitions, and slyly pair it with something that would make Oliver Cromwell nod with satisfaction—so, like, Medjugorje Louise or Hans Kung Makepeace. Show that you’re resisting oppression and that you went to college.
Boy name: a girl name. Bonus points if you can incorporate Pope Joan.

Never name your daughter after a virtue because they always seem to rebel against it.

Faith will become an athiest.

Temperance will become a drunk.

And Chastity will end up on Dancing With the Stars.

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