Name Days

If you visit the UU Billings home page, you'll notice that our events calendar has on some days a person's name. Some have asked what that means. It's that person's name day. Here's a brief explanation of name days from Wikipedia:

Name days are a tradition of attaching personal names to each day of the year, and celebrating the association of particular days with those for whom that day is named. It is common in large parts of Europe. The tradition originates from the Christian church calendar and the tradition to name children after saints, although in many countries it has no connection to the church anymore.

I decided to offer name days as an alternative celebration for our UU Billings family at the beginning of this year. One reason was that one of our members was undergoing a number of trials right around her birthday. It just didn't seem like the right time to celebrate. Another was that for some people a birthday is a private occasion that they may not want to share. Yet another was that all birthdays were not being observed equally. If you didn't have a family member or close friend in the fellowship who knew when your birthday was, it was up to you to offer it. Some people were just too shy to do this and their birthdays were ignored while others were publicly celebrated. It just didn't seem fair.

So Name Days give us a reason to celebrate each person's unique contribution to our lives and community without some of the issues attached to birthdays.

The Name Days on our calendar were taken from the website mynameday.com. I looked up names from an old directory so there will need to be some updates.

If you like it, let me know, and we will in the future figure out some way to make it more of a celebration. Ideas and suggestions are always welcome. Feel free to use the comments section of the blog.