View Message

Ah, you have touched a very sensitive issue, Andy!
The Orthodox Church is very tightly knit in the modern Greek social fiber, and the separation of Church and State in contemporary Greece is only nominal. Practically all Orthodox Greeks (approx. 95% of the Greek population), whether religious or not, are socially and culturally impelled to baptize their children, which means that the Church had until very recently the last word as to which names were "kosher" or not. This explains why the vast majority of Greeks have names that are associated with Orthodox Saints -- just shout Yianni (John) or Maria in a crowded Greek street, and dozens of heads will turn. IMHO, the Orthodox Church's approach has fostered an "onomastic holocaust," with the extinction of hundreds of beautiful names which the Church poo-pooed as "pagan". Fortunately, however, many classical names also have Christian Saints, such as Alexander, Socrates, Eros, Aphrodite, etc. During the past few years there has been a renaissance of long-lost Greek names thabks to the younger generation of Greek parents. Very recently, the Church reluctantly agreed to allow children to be baptized with “pagan” names “of historical merit”, although this is in practice discouraged by priests. The only names that are presently strictly Verbotten by the Church are Nero and Diocletian :) Personally, my wife and I gave our daughter two classical Greek names, Nephele and Demetra (Demeter): Demetra has a Christian association, but Nephele is purely "pagan". This did raise a few eyebrows among soem of our "God-fearing" friends and relatives :)