Today is my ‘birthday’ but not the day on which I was born. It is the day on which, 17 years ago, I ‘acquired’ my Romanian name – Dimitrie. My ‘ziua onomastică’ – onomastic day.
Few people call me that: the priests who married us 17 years ago just three days later, my Godfather (ie my ‘best man’ in English terms), my in-laws and a few close friends in Romania who know our story. I’ve had a few messages or calls from some of them today. Other than these a few people know it from questioning my ‘personal’ email address (I have a few addresses, for different purposes).
So, today is the day of Sf. (Saint) Dumitru (Romanian) or, with other spellings, Greek, Russian, English, etc – eg Demetrios, Dimitri, Dimitrie. I adopted the latter. He’s rather like St. George but he didn’t slay any dragons as far as I know.
Seventeen is a special number for Petronela and me. I have referred to it before I think but it may be the subject of a post in three days time.
PS. Some churches, eg the Roman Catholic church, celebrate St Dimitrie on a different day.
Grumpytyke 
December 27, 2017 at 9:24 am
I’ve learnt a new word: onomastic. I must find occasion to use it.
December 27, 2017 at 10:53 am
The best ‘occasion’ would maybe be during a trip to Romania – another good reason to go 🙂
October 26, 2017 at 7:00 pm
If I understand you correct, you have name day today! Congratulations! We have name days – Our calendars have names in every day, except 29th of February :).
October 27, 2017 at 7:59 am
Thank you Ilze. Yes, you understood correctly. We do not generally have name days in Britain but many people celebrate them in Romania (about 70% Orthdodox Christian, a high proportion practising).
Does ‘Ilze’ have a name day and if so, what is it?
Dumitru is quite a common name in Romania so we had to send quite a lot of messages.
October 27, 2017 at 9:18 am
Ilze & Janis both are in the calendar. Mine is 27th January but Janis is on solstice “Jāņu diena” 24th June. Also, Dimitrijs (in Latvian) is on 4th of October 🙂 Nelle, Linna and Helmī isn’t on calendar (these are not “normal” Latvian names 🙂 ) And I want them to stay that way! They can change her names later 🙂
October 29, 2017 at 8:39 am
Interesting about the girls’ names. Our Hungarian/Romanian couple neighbours chose British names for their three boys and I can understand that as they have settled here and the boys go or will go to an English school. But why were you averse to Latvian names for your girls? Anyway, I think Linna, Nelle and Helmi are lovely.
October 29, 2017 at 8:56 am
Why!? I have one of the popular names in Latvia! Even my mother in law is Ilze! And Janis is the popular name in Latvia! Even Janis cousin is Janis 🙂 and his granddad, my granddad etc… Don’t like how we need to choose from certain names… WHY!? I bet you don’t know how to pronounce Ilze and if I told you it won’t be easy because of very hard “Z” 🙂
October 29, 2017 at 9:06 am
Sounds like a good reason to me. I suspected as much about Janis as I had heard it before, but I had never heard of the name Ilze though I had an idea it was quite a common name from the number which came up when I was trying to find you on Facebook. I’ll believe you about the pronunciation but anything ‘hard’ doesn’t seem appropriate for you so I’ll keep the way I pronounce it in my head 🙂 .
By the way, my first name is my father’s name, as first born son, but I never use it ! That confuses hospitals etc 😉 .