History of Christian names

by Charlotte M. Yonge

In like manner we have Modesty, or Moddy, as a Puritan name in England, taken from the abstract virtue, while the peasant women of Southern France are christened Modestine, probably in honour of a Roman martyr called Modestus, who was put to death at Bezières. Indeed, Modestinus and Modestus were both in use even in the earlier Roman times, and were understood by those who first bore them not in the sense of ‘shamefastness,’ but of moderation or discretion, the word coming from modus (a measure).

To these, perhaps, should be added that which Italy and Spain have presumed to form from that title of the Blessed Saviour, Salvatore, or Salvador, the latter more common in South America than in the Old World.

Cœlum (heaven) formed, in late Latin, Cœlestinus, the name of one of the popes who was martyred, and afterwards canonized, and imitated by several successors, whence the French learned the two modern feminines, Celeste and Celestine.

Restitutus (restored), from re and sisto, seems as if it could be given only in a Christian sense, as to one restored to a new life; yet its first owner known to us was a friend of Pliny, and an orator under Trajan. It came to Britain, and is found in Wales as Restyn.

Melior (better), is a Cornish female name, probably an imitation of some old Keltic one. It is found as early as 1574.

Section XII.—Ignatius.

Ignatius is a difficult name to explain. Its associations are with the Eastern Church; but it occurs at a time when Latin names prevailed as much as Greek ones in the Asiatic portions of the Roman empire, and thus the Latin ignis (fire) is, perhaps, the most satisfactory derivation, though it is not unlikely that the word may come from the source both of this and of the Greek ἁγνός, purity and flame being always linked together in Indo-European ideas.

The birth-place of the great St. Ignatius is unknown, but tradition has marked him as the child whom our Lord set in the midst of His disciples, and he is known to have been the pupil of St. John, ordained by St. Peter, and at the end of his long episcopate at Antioch, he was martyred at Rome by command of Trajan, writing on his last journey the Epistles that are among the earliest treasures of the Church. So much is his memory revered in his own city, that to the present day the schismatic patriarchs of Antioch of the Monophysite sect uniformly assume the name of Ignatius on their election to their see.

The Greek Church has continued to make much use of this name, called in Russia Ignatij, Eegnatie, or Ignascha; and in the Slovak dialect cut short into Nace. The Spanish Church likewise adopted it in early times, and among the Navarrese counts and lords of Biscay, as far back as 750, we encounter both men and women called Iñigo and Iñiga, or more commonly Eneco and Eneca, used indifferently with the other form, and then Latinized into Ennicus and Ennica.

Navarre preserved the name, and it was a Navarrese gentleman, Don Iñigo Loyola, who, while recovering from his wounds, after the siege of Pampeluna, so read the lives of the saints as to become penetrated with enthusiasm as fiery as his name. Where the Jesuits have had their will may be read in the frequency of this renewed Iñigo, or Ignace, as it was in France, Ignaz in Roman Catholic Germany. It is Bohemia, where the once strong spirit of Protestantism was trodden out in blood and flame, that Ignaz is common enough to have turned into Hynek, and in Bavaria that it becomes Nazi and Nazrl.