Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Good thing maybe I only had one girl

...who I lost in the womb. If one can name a lost unbaptized child, I did, as Johanna Christine, not one of my chosen names.

But, if she would have had sisters, as one of my friends said, it is rather good no girls came along with my choices of names. However, I love these names and the saints connected.


First, Aleth, after Blessed Aleth of Montbard, St. Bernard's mum. All the girls would have had a Marian name second.

Second, Olga, after the great "Equal to the Apostles" St Olga of Kiev, (another family name)...

Third, Rosemary, just because it is such a beautiful English name....

Fourth, Audrey, which is a variation of guess who?--- St. Etheldreda...

Fifth, and I never imagined beyond five girls, Gwendolyn, unashamedly literary, but there is a St. Gwenn of Wessex, and we lived in old Wessex near her hermitage for a while, well not too far, as Marshwood Vale is in Dorset and we were in Sherborne. Her bones may be in Whitchurch Canonicorum, the only shrine not to be destroyed in the revolt under Henry VIII.