"Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady" book and author, Katherine Morna Towne. Photos provided.
SARATOGA SPRINGS – “This is all brand new to me,” says Katherine Morna Towne, a freelance writer and devout Catholic mother of six boys, who recently completed a book for the benefit of expectant parents. She has a seventh child on the way this fall.
Towne anticipates that hard copies of her first published book, "Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady," will be shipped starting next week by Marian Press in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
The book will be available for purchase locally at the Giver of Life Gift Shoppe at 658 Route 9 in Gansevoort. It also can be ordered online through the Marian Press website (https://www.shopmercy.org/catholic-baby-names-for-girls-and-boys.html) or through Amazon.
In an email, Towne opined that the title “sets my book apart from every other name book—Catholic or otherwise—on the market today.”
She elaborated: “Marian names have been important to Catholic families for hundreds of years, and I wanted to compile all the names I could find that are associated with the Virgin Mary so that modern parents—who might like to consider options beyond Mary, Marie, and Maria (beautiful though they are!)—can continue that tradition if they would like to, for their daughters as well as their sons.”
Towne added, “I also do baby name consultations for expectant parents looking for names that nod to their faith while fitting their personal style, and through them I've been able to see how much interest there is in unusual or unexpected Marian names especially, for both boys and girls.”
Towne explained that there were no costs associated with publishing the book, which she spent nearly 10 years researching and writing.
She added that, during those years, “many ideas” were shared by others through social media sites and her own personal blog, “Sancta Nomina: Thoughts on Catholic baby naming” (http://sanctanomina.net).