Christian name

In pre-Reformation England, the laity was taught to administer baptism in case of necessity with the words: "I christen thee in the name of the Father" etc.

[2] Similar names are found in the Christian inscriptions of the earlier period and in the signatories appended to such councils as Nicaea or Ancyra,[3] or again in the lists of martyrs.

Susanna, Daniel, Moses, Tobias, occur frequently, but towards the end of the 4th century the name of the Blessed Lady becomes as familiar as those of the Apostles.

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.

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.

[2] Bede wrote that King Caedwalla went to Rome and was baptized by the Pope Sergius who gave him the name of Peter.

[2] 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.

[2] 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.

These include Ademar, Ailma, Ailward, Albreza, Alditha, Almaury, Ascelina, Avice, Aystorius (these come from the lists of those cured at the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury).

[2] In Spain and Italy Marian festivals have also created names for girls: Concepción, of which the diminutive is Concha, as well as Asunción, Encarnación, Mercedes, Dolores etc.

[2] In the registers of Oxford University from 1560 to 1621, the more common names used by the students in order of popularity were: John, 3826; Thomas, 2777; William, 2546; Richard, 1691; Robert, 1222; Edward, 957; Henry, 908; George, 647; Francis, 447; James, 424; Nicholas, 326; Edmund, 298.

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.

[2] At confirmation, in which the interposition of a godfather emphasizes the resemblance with baptism, it has been customary to take a new name, but usually, use made of it is infrequent.