Christian name

In view of the Hebrew practice of giving a name to the male child at the time of his circumcision on the eighth day after birth (Luke 1:59), it has been maintained that the custom of conferring a name upon the newly baptised was of Apostolic origin. For instance, the apostle of the Gentiles was called Saul before his conversion and Paul afterwards. But modern scholars have rejected this contention, since the baptism of St. Paul is recorded in Acts 9:18, but the name Paul does not occur before Acts 13:9 while Saul is found several times in the interval. There is no more reason to connect the name Paul with the Apostle's baptism than there is to account in the same way for the giving of the name Cephas or Peter, which is due to another cause. In the inscriptions of the Catacombs of Rome and in early Christian literature, the names of Christians in the first three centuries did not distinctively differ from the names of the pagans around them. A reference to the Epistles of St. Paul indicates that the names of pre-Christian gods and goddesses were used by his converts after their conversion as before. Hermes occurs in Romans 16:14, with a number of other purely pagan names, Epaphroditus in Phil. 4:18, Phoebe, the deaconess, in Romans 16:1. or again in the lists of martyrs. At a later date the names are of a most miscellaneous character. The following classification is one that has been worked out by J. Bass Mullinger founded on Martigny. and there is a martyr Maria assigned to the date AD 256.--> ==Change of name at baptism==

In the Acts of St. Balsamus, who died AD 331, there is an early example of the connection between baptism and the giving of a name. "By my paternal name", this martyr is said to have declared, "I am called Balsamus, but by the spiritual name which I received in baptism, I am known as Peter." The assumption of a new name was fairly common amongst Christians. Eusebius the historian took the name Pamphili from Pamphilus, the martyr whom he especially venerated. Earlier still St. Cyprian chose to be called Cyprianus Caecilius out of gratitude to the Caecilius to whom he owed his conversion. St. Dionysius of Alexandria (c. 260) declared, "I am of opinion that there were many of the same name as the Apostle John, who on account of their love for him, and because they admired and emulated him, and desired to be loved by the Lord as he was, took to themselves the same name, just as many of the children of the faithful are called Paul or Peter." The assumption of any such new name would take place formally at baptism, in which the catechumen, then probably as now, had to be addressed by some distinctive appellation, and the imposition of a new name at baptism had become general. Every child had necessarily to receive some name or other, and when baptism followed soon after birth this allowed public recognition of the choice made. In the thirtieth of the supposed Arabian Canons of Nicaea: "Of giving only names of Christians in baptism"; but the sermons of St. John Chrysostom assume in many different places that the conferring of a name, presumably at baptism, ought to be regulated by some idea of Christian edification, and he implies that such had been the practice of earlier generations. For example, he says: "When it comes to giving the infant a name, caring not to call it after the saints, as the ancients at first did, people light lamps and give them names and so name the child after the one which continues burning the longest, from thence conjecturing that he will live a long time" (Hom. in Cor., xii, 13). Similarly he commends the practice of the parents of Antioch in calling their children after the martyr Meletius (P.G. 50, 515) and urges his hearers not to give their children the first name that occurs, nor to seek to gratify fathers or grandfathers or other family connections by giving their names, but rather to choose the names of holy men conspicuous for virtue and for their courage before God (P.G. 53, 179). There are other historic examples of such a change of name in adult converts. Socrates (Hist. Eccl., VII, xxi) wrote of Athenais who married the Emperor Theodosius the Younger, and who previously to marriage was baptized (AD 421) receiving the name Eudoxia. Bede wrote that King Caedwalla went to Rome and was baptized by the Pope Sergius who gave him the name of Peter. Dying soon afterwards he was buried in Rome and his epitaph beginning Hic depositus est Caedwalla qui est Petrus was pointed out (Bede, "Hist. Eccl.", V, vii). Later Guthrum the Danish leader in England after his long contest with King Alfred was eventually defeated, and consenting to accept Christianity was baptized in 878, taking the name Æthelstan. ==Practice regarding names==

Various Fathers and spiritual writers and synodal decrees have exhorted Christians to give no names to their children in baptism but those of canonized saints or of the angels of God, but at no point in the history of the Church were these injunctions strictly attended to. In Italy and Spain it has been common practice to call a child after the saint upon whose feast they are born. ==Confirmation names==

The practice of adopting a new name was not limited to baptism. Many medieval examples show that any notable change of condition, especially in the spiritual order, was often accompanied by the reception of a new name. In the 8th century, the two Englishmen Winfrith and Willibald going on different occasions to Rome received from the Pope, along with a new commission to preach, the names respectively of Boniface and Clement. Emma of Normandy when she married King Ethelred in 1002 took the name Ælfgifu; while the reception of a new, monastic name upon entering a religious order remains almost universal. ==See also==