Quite a bit, really, if you\u2019re one of our kids.<\/p>\n
As promised, here is a little post explaining Liam\u2019s name and the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind giving our poor children a million names each.<\/p>\n
We chose Liam because it means \u201cresolute protector,\u201d and we entrusted our first son with this role. He is the third (and so far the youngest) child, but as the first male we hope and expect him to be the resolute protector of his sisters, and of his family in general if anything were to happen to his father. We also really love the name Liam, in and of itself. The way it sounds, the way it\u2019s spelled, the way it looks\u2026it\u2019s a great name. Plus, Liam Neeson. Need I say more? (My husband insists that I put in a disclaimer saying that he is not in love with Liam Neeson\u2026 that\u2019s all me.)<\/p>\n
We had already decided on the name Liam but were having a terrible time agreeing on middle names when I woke up one morning with the name \u201cLiam Xavier Bede\u201d running through my head. It was a really weird experience, and the first thing I said to the Ogre was, \u201cI think our son just named himself.\u201d When I told him the name, he agreed, and that was that.<\/p>\n
So that day I got online and googled St. Francis Xavier. He was a Spanish Jesuit priest who was a missionary to many different places, most notably India and Japan. He also co-founded the Society of Jesus with St. Ignatius. To tell you the truth, though, I was left with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth after reading his history. Apparently rather than using the already-established idols and rituals of the pagan lands to create a nativised church (ike Matteo Ricci and other Jesuit missionaries), St. Francis Xavier did away with all the pagan nonsense and got straight down to business. I have mixed feelings about this approach, but what really got me was that he requested the Goa Inquisition.<\/p>\n
Inquisition = badness. Dark times for the Church.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, he is credited with converting more souls than anyone since St. Paul, which is awesome. Additionally, he took a special interest in restoring moral relations between Portuguese men and Indian women, and catechizing their illegitimate children, which (as many of you know) strikes a special note in my soul and makes me very, very fond of St. Francis Xavier.<\/p>\n
As for Bede, the venerable Bede was a 7th-century historian, scholar, and teacher. He is considered the father of English history for writing The Ecclesiastical History of the English People<\/span>, and was made a Doctor of the Church in 1899. We thought it was appropriate, given my husband\u2019s vocation as a scholar and teacher. Additionally, the name \u201cBede\u201d means prayer, taken from the Old English word \u201cbed\u201d (there should be a dash above the e, but I can\u2019t figure out how to do that).<\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to walk you through the rhyme and reason for all of our childrens\u2019 names, but generally the first name is the one we choose because we like it and we like the meaning, the second name is chosen to honor a particular saint, and the third, for Sienna and Charlotte, were chosen to honor family members. With Liam we couldn\u2019t agree on someone so we cast off that shackle and man, did freedom feel good. We may resume the honoring of family members next time, but no promises.<\/p>\n Also, because we\u2019re total English major dorks, Liam and Charlotte\u2019s names are in dactylic meter (my favorite meter) with a trochee at the end (we can\u2019t help our last name.) Poor Sienna\u2019s wasn\u2019t as well thought out. It doesn\u2019t scan very well, but the best I\u2019ve been able to do is to call it hypercatalectic with four feet of alternating iambs and anapests. I\u2019m expecting to be lambasted by my father-in-law for such a poor job of scanning, but hey, it\u2019s been five years since Junior Poet. I\u2019m a little rusty.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Quite a bit, really, if you\u2019re one of our kids. As promised, here is a little post explaining Liam\u2019s name and the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind giving our poor children a million names each. We chose Liam because it means \u201cresolute protector,\u201d and we entrusted our first son with this role. He is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[173,167,174],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baby-names","tag-liam","tag-saints-names"],"yoast_head":"\n