Choosing a Confirmation Name

Soon it will be time to choose a Confirmation name. You could focus on the link with your Baptism by using your baptismal name for your Confirmation or you could choose a different name that reflects the person you’d like to become. Do you already have an idea of the name you will choose? If not, talk to family, friends, your sponsor, your pastor, and your Confirmation director. Do research online or at the library. In the process, you will learn more about biblical heroes and saints: people who lived the Catholic faith fully, whose lives gave a prophetic witness to the truth. You might also choose the name of someone living today who models this kind of life for you.

It is never too early in the process to have candidates for Confirmation begin thinking about the names they will take at Confirmation. At the end of the session, provide the young people with books or other resources that offer good summaries of the lives of the saints. You may also want to have the young people visit Catholic websites that offer brief summaries of saints’ lives. Ask the young people to look for saints that they feel connected to, share an experience with, or whose example they want to follow.

Many candidates choose their baptismal names for their Confirmation names. Others choose different names. With your candidate, visit catholic.org/saints/ to research saints’ names the teen may be considering for his or her Confirmation name. Also look up the saints that you each are named for. Read the saints’ stories together. Talk about what the names mean and what strikes you about the saints’ stories. Then talk about what the saints’ missions in life have in common with your own goals.