What's up with that name?
Naming our future baby had been a task that we (or rather I) have been putting off forever. Jennifer actually compiled a list of names she liked, along with all sorts of information, such the origin, meaning, Saint's Day (Czech children receive gifts on their name's day), and popularity rank from the Social Security Administration site.
My parameters were to have something that'll work well in both Czech and English. I also wanted to have a traditional Czech (middle) name, one that would preferably be pronouncable by (most) English speakers. So a name like Přemysl would be obviously out of question.
In the end, we pretty much went with Jfer's choices -- she definitely had the bargaining advantage after having gone through 30+ hours of labor.
Magdalena is a good, cross-lingual name (true for many biblical names) which has a Spanish background, so this ties well into Jfer's Hispanic ancestry. Last year, Magdalena was 915th most poplar name, according to the SSA, and it was the 87th most popular in the CR (and Magdaléna was 114th).
Anežka is a traditional Czech name. It's pronounced AH-nezh-kah (the 'ž' should sound like 's' in the word 'pleasure' and the first syllable is stressed, just like any other Czech name -- despite of what you might hear on TV). The name is based on Sv. Anežka Česká (St. Agnes of Bohemia) who's the patron saint of Bohemia. Last year, Anežka didn't even rank on the SSA's popularity list (no big surprise) and it was 1535th in the CR (pretty obscure).
We figure that since the first name is that of a New Testament ho (although she probably just got a bad rep), it's good to ballance it with one known for its chasity :-)
BTW, since the birth certificate people don't do Unicode, her "official" name here is Magdalena Anezka.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: What's up with that name?.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.nonplus.net/mt4/mt-tb.cgi/834
I have a question: are you all pronouncing her name Mog-da or Mag-da?
Stepan, Thank you for background on the names you've given your daughter; two saints' names.
And Mary Magdalene got quite good press ... Lk 8:2 reports that Jesus removed 7 demons from her. Later she was at His crucifixion, entombment, and on the First day after the sabbath was over she accompanied several women who went to annoint the body of Jeus and discovered the tomb empty.
BLessed Agmes of Bohemia (1205-1282) had not been canonized by 1980 when my source was published.
Agnes was engaged a trio of time to three people: At three to Boleslaus,who when he died she was promised to Henry,the son of Emperor Frederick II, who married another. Overjoyed at this she decided to dedicate herself to God and live a life of austerity and virginity. After a Brother's engagement of her to Frederick, who in 1535 sent for her, Agnes petitioned Pope Gregory IX to intercede for her; when he did, Frederick released her from the engagement.OART: I use almost exclusively the ANSI Character Set and the unicode character, z with the - or tiny v over it is not one of the characters I have found in the ANSI Set. Anežka or her namesake will be gogolized for an information update.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01213b.htm
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/sainta40.htm
are two URLs to information. The second is closer to what I have with the addition that Saint Agnes was Canonized on November 12, 1989 by Pope John Paul II in Rome. Her feast day is March 2.