Name Day!

[pne]

It's my name day today! Xronia mou polla! :D

Comments

[sophie]

Chronia polla!

[pne]

Thank you!

[ex_xo956]

what is a name day??

[pne]

It's the celebration of the day that a saint died/was martyred.

Common especially in the Catholic and Orthodox branches of Christianity, who place more emphasis on saints than most Protestants do.

So each day will have one or more saints associated with it, and your name day is the name day of a saint with the same name as you. (If your given name is not a saint's name, I think such people often get a saint's name as an additional name at baptism; those people will then also have a name day.)

So you'll have lots of people called Mary/Maria celebrating their name day all together on the 15th of August, for example (Assumption of Mary/Dormition of the Theotokos).

St. Philip the apostle (John 1:44-52) has his feast day on the 14th of November (at least in the Orthodox church - the Catholics have it on the 3rd of May, and there are possibly other dates in other denominations), so since I share his name (though I wasn't specifically named for him), I take that as my name day.

The denomination I was raised in doesn't celebrate name days, so there's no big emotional envolvement for me; it's just a little thing I like to think of when November comes.

[sophie]

I'll admit, I didn't know this. I was looking for information on name days based on the Greek that you gave and found http://sunnyfotini.multiply.com/journal/item/153/Epiphany_my_Name_Day - and from that I thought it was a Greek tradition, not a Catholic one. That's also where I found the appropriate response.

[pne]

They even have name days in some Lutheran countries, such as Sweden.

[schnurble]

I don't understand this post, but I wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday! (I suppose, birthday and name day haven't anything to do with each other) :o)

[pne]

I don't understand this post

Perhaps these help? http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namenstag, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_day

I wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday!

Thank you!

(I suppose, birthday and name day haven't anything to do with each other)

True. That my name day is close to my birthday is a complete coincidence.

About the only similarity is that in some regions, from what I've heard, name days are the big celebrations (with invitations, presents, etc.) while birthdays are just a date on the calendar.