When choosing names for their children, people use different criteria: someone calls their son after a grandfather or great-grandfather, someone in honor of a famous person, and someone just likes the sound of this or that name. Christians, choosing a name for a child, are guided by the Saints.
The calendar is a church month. It includes a list of all people whom the Church venerates as saints, and arranged in a calendar order of days of their memory. The saints are divided into male and female.
In the Holy Calendar not only the name of the saint is indicated, but also his rank - an indication of the fate of this person and the nature of his spiritual deed. It can be a prophet, apostle, martyr, first martyr, hieromartyr, saint, reverend, righteous or blessed.
Along with the usual ones, there are facial calendar, in which there are images of saints.
Name-giving in the Orthodox Church
In the Russian Orthodox Church, naming once preceded baptism: the name was given on the 8th day after birth, and baptized after 40 days. Currently, the naming of a name is combined with baptism.
A person can receive at baptism only such a name that is present in the Holy Calendar - i.e. the name of a saint. It happens that baptism is accepted by a person who already has a name that is absent in the Orthodox Saints - Polina, Victoria, Ruslan, etc., in this case he receives a different name. In the world, such a person can be called whatever you want - it is not necessary to change the name in the documents, but it will be remembered in prayers, confessing, communing, marrying and burial under the name given at baptism.
The saint, whose name a person received at Baptism, becomes his patron. Some Christians do not celebrate their birthday, but they definitely celebrate the name day - the day of remembrance of their heavenly patron.
Choosing a name according to the Holy Calendar
Currently, the choice of a name according to the Holy Calendar is not regulated by any strict rules - it is enough for the name to be present in the Holy Calendar. If many saints bore such a name (for example, Mary or John), the patron saint of a person is considered the saint whose memory day is celebrated shortly after his birthday. For example, if Elena was born on March 2, her name day is March 19, and her patroness is Saint Helena, the mother of the Byzantine emperor Constantine.
If parents want to choose a name according to the Holy Calendar, there are different criteria for this. You can select the name of the saint whose commemoration day is celebrated on the child's birthday. In most cases, we are talking about several saints, so there is a choice.
Taking into account the tradition of calling the name on the 8th day after birth, you can focus on this date as well. Finally, you can give a person the name of the saint, on the day of whose memory he is baptized.
Some problems arise with the choice of a name for a girl: not every day is a holiday in honor of some holy woman, so for girls a shift of several days is allowed.
