By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
An Italian bishop is calling on parents to stop giving their children “ridiculous” names and revert to traditional Christian names instead.
In a country where the courts can ban couples from granting their children silly names, Monsignor Bassano Staffieri, retired bishop of La Spezia in Liuria, called for a return to traditional Christian names for children. He told the Timesonline that of the 500 girls born in the city this year, “not one was registered or baptised with the name Maria.” He added.”A name is not just a sound, it has a profound meaning.”
Mothers and fathers “should return to using a name like Maria, which is inspired by the Virgin Mary”, instead of opting for “exotic or strange names of which their children will later be ashamed”, the bishop said.
He said there were signs that parents were returning to more traditional names for the sons, but not yet for their daughters.
He said he doesn’t believe the reason for this is because families are abandoning the faith but because they’re simply not giving enough thought to baptismal names. “The problem is they do not think about what they are doing,” he said.
Last month the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest appeal Court, banned a couple from naming their son Friday – Venerdi – because the name “could expose the boy to ridicule.” The court said the name was derived from the manservant in Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, and was therefore associated with “subservience and inferiority.”
The judges ordered the boy to be renamed Gregorio, after the saint’s day on which he was born.
The boy’s parents, whose identities were not revealed under Italian privacy laws, said they should be free to name the boy as they wished. They said they would continue to call him Friday in private, and threatened to call their next child Mercoledi, which means Tuesday.
However Gian Ettore Gassani of the Italian Association of Matrimonial Lawyers agreed with the ruling, saying courts had the power to change any name “likely to limit social interaction and create insecurity.”
Some are blaming the fad for weird baby names on celebrities who chose to give their children ridiculous names. For instance, actor David Carridine named one of his children I.P.Freely; musician Frank Zappa named his child Moon Unit; Gwyneth Paltrow named her daugher Apple; Jason Lee named his child Pilot Inspektor; and actress/musician Shannyn Sossamon named her child Audio Science.
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STUDY QUESTIONS:
1. What does the Church teach about the choosing of a proper Christian name? (See No. 2156 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church available here: http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a2.htm#III )
2. Will we take our names with us to heaven? (See No. 2159 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church)
3. Are there any stipulations in the Code of Canon Law directing parents to give their child a Christian name? (See No. 855 in the Code of Canon Law available here: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P2V.HTM
4. Biblical names are full of meaning. For a complete list of names appearing in the Bible, along with an explanation of their meanings, visit http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hitchcock/bible_names.toc.html
