[89]. Butler; Philological Society; Merriman, Church in Spain; La Thaumaturge du 19me Siècle.
CHAPTER VII.
NAMES FROM HOLY DAYS.
Section I.
The great festivals of religion have supplied names which are here classed together for convenience of arrangement, though they are of all languages. Most, indeed, are taken from the tongue that first proclaimed the glory of the days in question; but in several instances they have been translated into the vernacular of the country celebrating them. Perhaps the use of most of these as Christian names arose from the habit of calling children after the patron of their birthday, and when this fell upon a holiday that was not a saint’s day, transferring the title of the day to the child. Indeed, among the French peasantry, Marcel and Marcelle are given to persons born in March, Jules and Julie to July children, and Auguste and Augustine to August children.
Section II.—Christmas.
The birthday of our Lord bears in general its Latin title of Dies Natalis; the latter word from nascor (to be born). The g, which old Latin places at the commencement of the verb and its participle, gnatus, shows its connection with the Greek γίγνομαι (to come into existence), with γένεσις (origin), and the Anglo-Saxon beginning.
This word Natalis has furnished the title of the feast to all the Romance portion of Europe, and to Wales. There all call it the Natal day; Nadolig in Welsh. France has cut the word down into Noël, a word that at Angers was sung fifteen times at the conclusion of lauds, during the eight days before the feast, and which thus passed even into an English carol, still sung in Cornwall, where the popular tongue has turned the chorus into
“Now well! now well! now well!”
This cry of Noël became a mere burst of joy; and in Monstrelet’s time was shouted quite independently of Christmas. Noel is a Christian name in France; Natale, in Italy; Natal, in the Peninsula. Indeed, the Portuguese called Port Natal by that title in honour of the time of its discovery, but the Spanish Natal must be distinguished from Natividad, which belongs to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, a feast established by Pope Sergius in 688, on the 8th of September.
That same 8th of September was chosen by the Greek Church as the festival day of St. Natalia, the devoted wife who attended her husband, St. Adrian, in his martyrdom, with heroism like that of Gertrude von der Wart. He is the same Adrian whose relics filled the Netherlands, and who named so many Dutchmen; but while the West was devoted to the husband and neglected the wife, the East celebrated the wife and forgot the husband. Natalia is one of the favourite Greek Christian names; Lithuania calls her Nastusche and Naste; Russia, Natalija, Nataschenka, and Natascha; and France has learned the word as Natalie from her Russian visitors. Natalie, however, occurs at Cambrai as early as 1212.