Bulletin Q&A Article; Published 11-3-24:
When choosing a saint for confirmation, does the saint have to be the same gender as the one being confirmed?
What is in a name? I still get chills when I remember Sr. Peter Damien from grade school. My 7th grade mind pictures her as being 6’ 3” tall and weighing in at over 200 pounds. She picked my friend out of his seat with one hand when she heard him make a derogatory comment under his breath. (At least that’s the way I remember it.) And many years ago, I made my consecration to Jesus through Mary according to the method developed by the priest, St. Louis Marie de Montfort. I think we all know men and women religious who have names associated with saints of the opposite gender. And so it can be with confirmation names.
Confirmation saints should be selected because they have virtues that the confirmandi wants to model their life after. They should ask for the saint’s ongoing intercession. Selecting a confirmation saint is a wonderful custom. However, it is a fairly recent custom and one that is not universally practiced around the world. As an infant, the one being baptized is given a name of their parents’ choice. But at confirmation, the young adult is allowed to make their own choice of a second patron saint name.
Canon law sets down a requirement for a baptismal name, although it is not necessarily required to be the name of a saint. It simply states: “Parents, sponsors, and the pastor are to take care that a name foreign to Christian sensibility is not given” (Can. 855). With regard to confirmation names, however, canon law is silent. Selecting a confirmation saint, while very beneficial, is not a requirement for being confirmed.
When I was confirmed back in 1962, I was ten years old and in 4th grade. We weren’t given much direction at the time about selecting a confirmation name, and so many of us simply chose the name of the person we had chosen to be our sponsor. I had chosen my Uncle Harold. Everything was going along fine until our teacher required us to write an essay about our confirmation saint. Panic set in because I didn’t even know if there was a St. Harold. This was before the internet, obviously, and so I went down to the public library and searched through the many encyclopedias. Nada. My aunts were put on the case, and they all searched through their prayer books and devotionals looking for some evidence of St. Harold. Ultimately, someone found a short paragraph about him, and I was able to write my essay. I don’t remember the information that was found about St. Harold, and I have been remiss about asking for his intercession. I pray that all those being confirmed do a better job than I did in selecting a confirmation saint, whether that saint be a man or a woman.
Footnote: With the current wealth of information available online, I have now identified two saints with the name of Harold; both were martyrs. One lived in England in the 12th century and died as a child. The other was a king in Denmark in the 10th century. I think King Harold is my confirmation saint. I will start asking for his intercession.