04 Naming Ceremony

Each Naming Ceremony is unique and created especially for you, your family and your child.

This means there is no set script and no fixed structure. Instead, I will guide you through various options and together we can plan and create an occasion that’s fitting for your specific circumstances.

Here is a basic structure for a naming ceremony, but you do not have to organise it this way, and you may also want to include other components.

• Introduction and welcome
• Readings and poems
• Information about your child – their arrival, personality, interests so far
• Words about the importance and responsibility of parenting
• Parental promises to the child
• Words on the importance of wider family (e.g. grandparents, cousins, etc.)
• Nomination of guide-parents
• Guide-parents’ promises to the child
• Reasons for the choice of name
• The naming itself
• Rituals such as "messages in a bottle"
• Concluding words

A Naming Ceremony can happen anywhere you wish – indoors, outdoors, at home, in the park, at a local town hall.

A Naming Ceremony isn’t a baptism or christening. These are religious ceremonies carried out by religious clergy. Perhaps the difference can be explained by saying a christening welcomes a child into the house of god and into the church congregation, while a naming ceremony welcomes the child into the family and the community.

A Naming Ceremony is about presenting your child to the world (of friends and family), recognising the child, and committing to supporting the child, and of course announcing the name you have given to them. It is about love, and welcome.

I look forward to meeting with you to plan the details of the ceremony, to make sure it is a memorable day.