In honor of Thanksgiving, let us remember our Puritan forebears with a nod to their fondness for virtue names. They believed that one’s name could help shape who they become as a human being, and were certainly creative in some of their best efforts to form the perfect appellation for their young one.
Some virtue names are still in widespread use today, particularly in the middle spot– Faith, Hope, and Joy are all perennial favorites. Yet the spectrum offers many intriguing choices that sound very modern. A few could be used on males– Noble, Justice, Prosper, Ardour, Worth? Perhaps Submit and Chastity may be best left to rest in peace.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And many thanks to T.S., who helped inspire this post. ;-)
VIRTUE NAMES
Amity
Ardour
Blythe
Charisma
Charity
Chastity
Clarity
Clemency
Comfort
Constance
Courage
Desire
Destiny
Endurance
Exuberance
Faith
Felicity
Fidelity
Grace
Harmony
Honesty
Honor
Hope
Humility
Joy
Jubilant
Justice
Liberty
Love
Loyalty
Makepeace
Mercy
Mirth
Modesty
Noble
Obedience
Patience
Piety
Prosper, Prosperity
Prudence
Purity
Remember
Serenity
Submit
Temperance
True, Truth
Unity
Valor
Verity
Worth
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
*sqeee* i LOVE virtue names. I don’t think I’d every use them (I just love other names more), but I have a total soft spot for them.
I particularly like:
Amity
Comfort
Constance
Courage
Felicity
Honesty
Honor
Joy
Mercy
Modesty
Noble
Patience
Prudence
Purity
Remember
Serenity
Temperance
True
Unity
Valor
Verity
Worth
This is indeed a timely post. I like Felicity now; but as a child in the 60s I remember the priest would include her name along with Agatha and others during Sunday Mass – for the longest time I just thought of it as ANCIENT!
I’m curious about virtue names in other languages. They are quite common in Spanish. My middle name Amparo can be roughly translated as Refuge, and my mother is Consuelo, meaning Consolation.
Fe, Esperanza and Caridad are Faith, Hope and Charity. Fe is extremely rare, Caridad is occasionally used and Esperanza is quite popular.
Thanks for your blog and have a Happy Thanksgiving weekend!
Oh, Amity, Clement/Clementine, Jubilant (or simply Jubal), Noble, Prosper, Unity & Verity make my heart sing!
Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours, Elisabeth!
i know a Prudence (Prue), and several Grace’s.
i think Prosper would be a wonderful name, as would True.
still working on a name for our baby, i’m shocked i only have 3 months to go!!
Amity, Verity, Honor, Constance, Mirth, Noble, Prosper, and Jubilant are among my favorites from this list.
Christina, that’s funny about Felicity. Did they say her name in conjunction with Perpetua? Felicity doesn’t sound particularly religious to me, but I suppose it is. Amparo is gorgeous! I’d love to put together a good list of Catholic word names in Spanish– maybe you can assist me with that if you’d like?
Erica, is that a child Prudence? I have a real soft spot for that name. What is on your current list. 3 months! That’s exciting!!!
Hope everybody had a lovely holiday and avoids getting trampled today at the malls.
Well, Elisabeth, now that you mentioned it, yes, Felicity (or Felicitas) was said in conjunction with Perpetua. Funny that we name nerds would remember the names although not necessarily the context!
I googled it and it turns out they are part of the Eucharistic Prayer.
As for the list of Catholic word names, I’d be happy to share what I have and you can use them anyway you’d like. Email me and I’ll send you something in the next few days.
what about made up virtue names?? who knows any? i know a girl named Trivity… like the pot holder.
What about Travesty? Not made up, but new as a name! ;-}
Not virtue names in another language, but through time spent in Nigeria and Tanzania, I have met people with the following names:
Gracious
Overblessing
Youngsaviour
Freedom
Goodlove
Goodluck
Lucky
Amen
Precious
Modesta
Those are the names I can think of off the top of my head.
Hey ShellyOK, that’s quite a list! I do kind of love Modesta, and Overblessing is an interesting union of words! Thanks so much for that.
I think Makepeace could be an interesting middlename option for the creative namer.
I have a soft spot for Temperance, but I don’t care for “Tempie” as a nickname. FWIW, Temperance is the first name of the title character on the TV show “Bones”, and it is an cleric spell in EverQuest (an online RPG), which might give it a high nerd quotient… But I like it.
It isn’t on your list, but Silence has grown on me as well. It might have a little bit of a dark edge to it, though.
i love virtue names!
one of my favorites that i never see on hardly any lists is Divinity.
i know that i didn’t make it up!
i like it, and i seem to be the only one.
Divinity isn’t a “virtue”…. it’s CANDY.
Or:
1. the nature of a deity or the state of being divine
2. a god or other divine being
3. (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) (often capital; preceded by the) another term for God
4. (Christian Religious Writings / Theology) another word for theology
A “virtue” is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent, such as the virtue of “Patience”.
Thus, Divinity is not a virtue, but a “state of being” (or candy)… so, in either case, it won’t be on a list of “virtue” names!
What about Earnest, Victor, Grant(ed), Legacy, Providence, Clement/Clemence as a masculine form of Clemency?
My daughter’s middle name is Joy, and on my middle name list for this baby I have Grace, Hope, Faith, Felicity, Patience, and Mercy for a girl, and Justice, Grant, Providence & Emmanuel for a boy. Courage, Noble and Truth are nice, strong, masculine names too.
JL: Prosper and Remember are really virtues either, but they are on the list. I think Trinity, Divinity, Emmanuel, etc, can be put in the same category of names.
I meant “aren’t”