St. Luna?

Short answer: No. But it’s an okay name.

According to a list of the top twenty baby names from the UK baby name site Nameberry, “Luna” is the #1 baby name for girls in 2020, so far. In the US, the Social Security Administration says that in 2018, Luna was up to #23 for girls.

Of course we know why. It’s the character Luna Lovegood, from the Harry Potter books. (And possibly, just a little influence from Luna the cat in Sailor Moon.) Two popular UK celebrities apparently named their daughter Luna last year, and this pushed it over the top in the UK.

So let’s look on the bright side. It’s a real name, with history and everything, and it sounds pretty and feminine. But it’s also a name of the Roman goddess of the Moon. Is it a suitable baptismal name?

Weeeell, lots of early Christian saints and martyrs were converted pagans with pagan names. Their conversion made their names Christian. So there is precedent.

The funny thing is that, at the time of big Roman conversions, most of the Gentiles turned martyrs were either Roman women bearing Roman clan names, or slaves bearing fashionable Greek names. You do get some ethnic names (St. Monica’s name was Punic, ie, Phoenician/Carthaginian), but you don’t usually get “given names” like we have, until later Christian times. Also, the moon goddesses were pretty popular, so people may have avoided giving moon-related names.

But nowadays, there’s no real reason not to name your kid Luna, if you feel like it. Lu- names like Lucy and Louise are getting popular. Probably more of a middle name, though.

Lunicia is a name today, although an uncommon one. There’s a saint named that in North Africa, on June 7. Lunicie is another spelling. (And yeah, avoid your kid being called Lunacy.)

That said, there’s also a St. Luna Mista listed on April 6 in some old martyrologies, but she’s also listed as “Summista.” Either way, nobody knows more about her (or him) than that.

The more common name is Diana, or in France, Diane. Diana is an Italian name and just means “goddess.” She was originally a rural goddess of the hunt, but got tacked onto all the Greek stuff with Artemis, Selene, and Hecate.

Diana was not popular with early Christians for the same Roman reasons; but it came back big as a Christian name in the high Middle Ages.

Blessed Diana d’Andalo was a real character. She came from a rich family in Bologna, but wanted to join the Dominican order of nuns and build a convent. So she first made a private vow of virginity, witnessed by St. Dominic and other Dominicans. Then she took a field trip with friends to a Benedictine convent of nuns, who had agreed beforehand to keep her until the Dominicans could get a convent going, and help her learn the nun business.

But as with St. Clare, her family showed up. They kidnapped her away from the nuns. When she got away, she joined some Augustinian nuns with their prior permission (you have to admire this girl’s letterwriting and plotting skills), and got kidnapped again. The family broke her rib and she was confined to her bed, but she managed to write St. Dominic while he was on his deathbed. She escaped again to the Augustinians. Finally, Blessed Jordan of Saxony (and his 24 charisma points) visited her family, and persuaded them to build a Dominican convent close to their home, so that the family could just visit, like normal people. This worked out, and the convent also produced Bl. Cecilia and Bl. Amata of Bologna. She died on Jan. 9, 1236. Her day is June 10, or June 8, or June 9 (depending on the calendar).

There’s also Bl. Diana, the first prioress of Sobrives in Provence. She was the aunt of St. Rosseline de Villeneuve, the patron saint of the Carthusians and the Order of Malta.

On the Greek name side, of course there is Phoebe from the Bible. Phoebe, “shining” or “bright one,” was one of the titles of Artemis. (And there’s a Phoebe in Harry Potter, too.)

There doesn’t appear to be any saint named Selene. There are several saints named Artemia, after Artemis. There’s the martyrs Ss. Artemia and Attica, on February 18, and the abbess of Cuteclara in Spain, St. Artemia.

The widow and abbess St. Artemia was not a martyr of Cordoba, but she taught one, St. Maria, in her convent. Maria was deeply impressed by St. Artemia’s description of how her sons were martyred by the Muslims, which was why she sought the religious life; and that’s part of why St. Maria went to Cordoba with St. Flora and formally denounced Islam in front of a qadi. They were executed on Nov. 24, 851.

(Another Cuteclara martyr nun was St. Aurea or Aura, who was born and raised Muslim but converted, and who stayed a nun for twenty years after being widowed. Her convert brothers, Ss. Adolphus and John, died martyrs on Sept. 27, 822. During the Cordoba persecutions, her relatives found her and dragged her out of the convent to face an Islamic judge. She renounced Christianity under duress and was stuck back in her relatives’ household. Secretly, she went back to practicing Christianity, but eventually the relatives found out. She refused to go back to Islam and was executed for apostasy on July 19, 856.)

(A few years later, another widow, St. Laura, was the abbess of Cuteclara, when she was martyred on October 19, 864 by being plunged into a cauldron of boiling pitch.)

The most famous St. Artemia was a misnomer for the Emperor Diocletian’s daughter, who was harried during his lifetime for being a Christian or Christian-friendly, and then was killed by a mob in Thessaloniki. (Her name was actually Valeria, after her dad’s clan name, and her married name was Galeria Valeria.) It’s not entirely clear whether she was technically killed as a martyr, or because she refused to marry, or because she was a convenient target. Either way, she went through plenty of hell on earth. Her bones are supposedly in Rome, in the Church of St. Sylvester, and her feast is August 8 or August 16. (Similarly, her Christian mother Prisca is sometimes miscalled Serena or Alexandra.)

There’s a town in Brittany named “Saint-Lunaire,” for St. Lunarius or Leonor, a male Breton saint who worked and was buried there.

There is a Castillo de Luna in Rota, Spain, and “Santa Luna” is a placename that occasionally comes up. De Luna was the name of a powerful Spanish family that conquered the town of Luna in Zaragoza. There’s also an Italian town named Luni, which was called Luna in Etruscan and Roman times. So in classical times, Carrara marble was called Luna marble. The town was once a notable port, but it got sacked by both Vikings and Muslims, until the port silted up. So the town was eventually abandoned, but has been excavated now.

The Moon gets mentioned in the Bible, of course, but Middle Eastern folks thought of the Moon as male, not female. The god of Ur of the Chaldaeans was Sin the moon god, and later the Babylonians worshipped him as Nebo or Nebu. Funnily enough, King Nectanebo, who was probably the Bible’s Nebuchadnezzar, started out as a commoner from Ur; and he notoriously put his god Nebo ahead of Babylon’s god Marduk. (Sometimes the Sun was thought of as female, but usually Shamash was pictured as also a guy.) So when you see the Beloved in the Song of Songs compared to the Sun, the Moon, and an army, it’s all masculine images. (Yeah, not very intuitive to us, but the Moon is also masculine in Japan.)

There was once a part of the Divine Office called the “Luna,” just like Lauds and Matins and Vespers. It came after Prime, and it was basically some readings from the martyrology. The little round window in a monstrance is also called a “luna.”

Lovegood or Love-God, btw, were Puritan names for girls. Love-Well was a boy’s name.

During Puritan times, it was pretty common for Royalists or Catholics to give their kids classical Roman or Greek names, as a sort of protest. So there were lots of guys named Hercules, Paris, Neptune, etc., and a fair number of women named Venus, Cassandra, Diana….

Oh, and the surname Moon is usually the Norman surname De Mohun, which comes from the town of Moyon or Moion in Normandy.

UPDATE: Delia is Greek for “Delian, person from Delos.” Artemis and Apollo were twins and both born on Delos, so Delia and Delios are also their titles. “Phoebus” is one of Apollo’s titles, too.

I also forgot Cynthia (“woman from Mount Kynthos”), which is a title of both Artemis and Aphrodite. Again, nobody thinks of it as a pagan name anymore.

St. Asher?

The UK baby name website Nameberry just put out a list of the top twenty baby names from 2020 (so far). Obviously this is totally non-official, being a list of the most popular names used for babies of their website patrons! But it’s interesting, so let’s check it out.

The number 1 Nameberry boy’s name is Asher.

Asher is a traditional Jewish name. He was one of Jacob’s sons, his eighthborn. His mom was Leah’s handmaid Zilpah (or Zilpha, in Greek-influenced versions). He grew up to be the ancestor of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

The Bible tells us Leah named him “Asher” because she was happy to beat out Rachel and her handmaid Bilhah’s son count, so the name means “happy.” But the actual Hebrew also means “blessed.” (Much as the Greek “makarios” means both “happy” and “blessed.”)

So let’s look at what is actually said in Genesis 30:13 —

And Leah said:

“Be ‘asseri ki ‘isseruni banowt.”
(“I am happy, because the daughters” (ie, the women) “will call me blessed.”)

So she called his name ‘Asher.

Interesting, huh? Who else do we know who was called “blessed among women” (Lk. 1:42) by Elizabeth, and who then replied that “Henceforth, all the generations will call me blessed”? The same woman who also called herself a “handmaid” in that poem. Yup, Mary says that she sees herself in both Zilpah and Leah, although there are also Biblical typologies of Mary with Rachel and Bilhah. (And pretty much every other Biblical matriarch, for that matter.)

Asher’s older full brother, Gad, had a name that means “lucky,” because Leah says she was feeling lucky to beat Rachel and Bilhah’s son count (Gen. 30:11).

In Jewish tradition, Asher is portrayed as having been a good guy and a peacemaker between his brothers. The people of Asher were prosperous and wise, and they had the most sons. The women of the tribe were remembered as exceptionally beautiful, and much courted by Jewish leaders and priests.

One of their ancestresses, Asher’s daughter or stepdaughter Serah (also spelled Serach), is noted by name twice in the Bible. There are interesting traditions about her kindly nature and good relationship with her dad Asher and her grandfather Jacob. On Jacob’s deathbed, he is said to have blessed her along with his sons and with his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh. The traditional wording of this blessing was “May you live forever and never die,” and so she is supposed to have been taken up to Heaven like Elijah and Enoch. Serach is also supposed to have remained on earth until the time of Moses, and have been the only one who remembered where to find Joseph’s tomb with his bones. After being taken into Heaven, Serach occasionally returned to earth to help rabbis with their studies. When one later rabbi wondered about the crossing of the Red Sea, she poked her head in the window and told him about her memories of the event.

(But shyeah, Catholics are totally nutso and pagan in their ideas about Mary. Yup.)

The tribe of Asher ultimately were taken into captivity and not returned, and became of the “lost” Ten Tribes. However, some members of each tribe did remain in Judah. For example, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, the prophetess in Luke 2:36, is identified by Luke as a member of the tribe of Asher.

In Gen. 49:20, Jacob prophetically blesses Asher among the rest of his sons on his deathbed, saying, “From Asher shall be rich bread, and he shall yield royal delicacies.”

In Deut. 33:24, Moses blesses this tribe, saying, “Asher, most blessed of sons: let him be favored by his brothers, and let him dip his foot in oil.” The Jewish interpretation is sometimes rendered as “most blessed with sons,” ie, with descendants. “Foot dipped in oil” refers to the tribe’s lands assigned to them in Israel, which would be good for olive orchards and olive oil.

The controversial part is that the Asher and Gad tribes had their land in the areas that would become Phoenician and Gentile territory (in Galilee), and they might have been related to pagan groups too. There’s a Phoenician god of luck named Gad, and the god of the city of Assur was named Assur, which is really close to Asher. (Assyria is really “Assur.”) And the Egyptians mentioned people called “Asaru.” So people kinda wonder what that tribe was doing.

(The name of the Phoenician goddess Asherah or Athirah, btw, is from a different word stem — the word “to walk, to stride.”)

As a patriarch of one of the Twelve Tribes, Asher is a saint. So it’s totally normal and appropriate to name a baby after him. You will find his name spelled “Aser” in Greek and Latin sources.

In the Latin/Roman Rite, the traditional feast day of St. Asher is February 5. This is also the feast of Ss. Abraham and Sarah, St. Melchizadek, St. Lot, Ss. Isaac and Rebecca, St. Jacob, Ss. Leah and Rachel, and all the other patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes.

On the Eastern side of things, the second Sunday before Christmas is called “the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers of Christ,” when all the patriarchs and matriarchs get celebrated. But they also have various saints’ days for individual Old Testament saints.

In the US, Asher has always been a Jewish name, but it seems to have been growing in popularity as a Christian name over the last five years. (In 2018, it was #47 in boys’ names.) In this unhappy time, one can see why people would want a name that means “happy” or “blessed.” It also sounds a lot like other popular names, such as Ash, Ashley, and Aislinn.

(But bear in mind the obvious mispronunciation of all Ash- names.)

St. Chad?

St. Chad of Mercia. Yup. Totally legit bishop and missionary in Anglo-Saxon England. His Latin name was Ceadda.

His famous brother was St. Cedd (pronounced Keth, with a soft/voiceless “th” like in “width”) or Cedda (the same, with an “ah”). They were both educated at Lindisfarne, and became abbots of the monks of Lastingham. The other brothers were Cynibil and Caelin. (Bede tells us about all this.)

Chad stepped into history after the Synod of Whitby (AD 664). Shortly after the synod ended, many prominent bishops and churchmen who had been in attendance came down with the Yellow Plague (probably the same as Justinian’s Plague, but possibly a kind of yellow fever) and died. Chad’s brother Cedd, King Oswiu of Northumbria’s chaplain, was one of the dead, as was Bishop Tuda of Northumbria, and Archbishop Deusdedit of Canterbury.

King Oswiu of Northumbria decided that he needed a bishop of Northumbria. The bishop of Canterbury was dead, and no successor had been named in three years, so every king and abbey felt like they could and should do their own thing.

King Oswiu and his under-king, Alfrid of Deira, originally picked a guy named Wilfrid (St. Wilfritha, in fact) and sent him off to France for consecration (bishops being rather thin on the ground after the Yellow Plague/Synod), but Wilfrid didn’t come back. So Oswiu named Chad the bishop of Northumbria.

Chad protested his unworthiness, and then set out for Wessex to be consecrated by one Saxon and two British bishops. Then he traveled barefoot to visit all the parishes in his diocese, preaching the Gospel and giving the Sacraments.

Meanwhile, without knowing all this, Wilfrid was over in France, gathering support along with his mentor Agilbert. Agilbert and several other French bishops consecrated him a bishop for Northumbria, but Wilfrid did not go home right away. When he did, he was named bishop of York, and gathered allies but did not fight Chad’s bishoping. Much like Northumbria and Deira, they seem to have acted as allied bishops that shared territory.

At this point, stuff was happening in Rome. In 667, King Ecgberht of Kent decided he needed an archbishop of Canterbury. Local discussion among priests and the king seem to have hit on Wighard, a member of Archbishop Deusdedit’s household. So they sent him off to Rome. He seems to have gotten consecrated with papal approval, and then kicked the bucket. So Pope Vitalian picked one of the Greek refugees from the Muslim conquests of the East, a monk named Theodore of Tarsus. He was learned, experienced, holy, and from St. Paul’s hometown. What more could you want?

When St. Theodore arrived in Britain in 669, he was shocked to learn about Chad’s political appointment unapproved by Canterbury and hence felt it was a false consecration as bishop. Chad expressed all readiness to step down and hand the job to Theodore’s candidate. But when Theodore learned of all Chad’s hard work and holiness, Theodore decided he also wanted Chad to be bishop, and eventually named him bishop of Mercia!

(St. Theodore had almost twenty years of conflict with St. Wilfrid about the division of Northumbria into more bishoprics. But it worked out, and they’re all saints together.)

Chad died in 672, after receiving a message from an angel that he would die in seven days. Chad warned his brother monks about his death, and referred to Death as “that friendly guest who often visits the brethren.” He died on March 2, and one man had a vision of angels and saints coming to fetch him, including Chad’s brother Cedd.

Of course, Chad is often used today in the US as a descriptive name for men who are strong and not too bright, although also for men who are strong and mean. This is not fair to its most famous bearer.

Funnily enough, the UK seems to have missed the Seventies and Eighties popularity of the name Chad. But it’s as UK a name as you can get. Chad was a Saxon, but his name is Welsh and means “battle.”

His brothers’ names mix Saxon and Welsh, much like Northumbria’s population did. You don’t find this situation often in world history, outside of the US!

Ss. Chad and Cedd, pray for us!