On Names and Godparents<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is there anything guaranteed to kick off a quarrel in an otherwise harmonious household faster than naming a new baby and picking godparents? The only\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/2009\/03\/on-names-and-godparents.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Names and Godparents\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is there anything guaranteed to kick off a quarrel in an otherwise harmonious household faster than naming a new baby and picking godparents? 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{"id":1082,"date":"2009-03-16T10:06:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-16T10:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/2009\/03\/on-names-and-godparents.html"},"modified":"2014-08-22T15:53:30","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T20:53:30","slug":"on-names-and-godparents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/2009\/03\/on-names-and-godparents.html","title":{"rendered":"On Names and Godparents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I have declared my love of a girl name that happens to be both the name of my favorite aunt (you know who you are) and a saint for whom I have great affection. Family connection and a great saint, it should be the end of the story, and I thought it was. Until my sweet Computer Guy fell in love with a name that is \u201ccute.\u201d Seriously? That\u2019s his reasoning, \u201cit\u2019s so cute.\u201d Who wants a girl with a cute name? No. We want strong, proud names that can carry them through life and not seem ridiculous when they\u2019re 90. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m dangerously close to the point of pulling rank here. I know he\u2019s the head of the household, but one of us has to push the little darling out of her hoo-hah and the other one has to be in the room. I think that gives me the upper hand in this whole baby naming debate. Let she who has to birth the little dear name the sweet thing. If he wants naming control, then he can birth the next one. <\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the whole godparent debate\u2026.Who do we pick? Will it hurt the feelings of some other friend or relative that they weren\u2019t the chosen one? Probably. I hate hurting feelings, but we\u2019re at the point of it being inevitable here. People have started saying things like, \u201cOkay. This is the sixth one and I thought we were pretty good friends. Do I ever get to be one of your children\u2019s godparent?\u201d Never mind that the close friend is a Buddhist<\/a> who spends his weekends as his alter ego \u201cLady Mandarin\u201d and looks better in a dress than I do. Perhaps I should just post a bulletin that anyone who\u2019s hotter than me is not going to be a godparent because I want to be the cute one in the pictures. That would remove the whole thorny \u201cYou\u2019re not a Catholic. You\u2019re going to Hell and you\u2019re not taking my baby with you\u201d argument. They can just take pride in their hotness and I can still go to family reunions without fearing that the chocolate cake is poisoned.<\/p>\n

People take this whole name and godparent thing and make it about them. If I name the baby your name, it may be about you or it may be a coincidence. Don\u2019t ask unless you can take the truth without hating me. If I don\u2019t ask you to take responsibility for my child\u2019s eternal well-being, it\u2019s not that I don\u2019t love you or like you\u2026well, it may be\u2026but chances are that I\u2019ve prayed about it and God led me to someone else. Or it could be that I\u2019m not taking pictures next to a guy who looks better than me in a dress. Whatever.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"