Today is my name day.

What’s a “name day”, you say? Good question. At root, it’s a like a birthday, except that instead of celebrating your age, you’re celebrating your first name — or really, the Christian saint of whom you’re a namesake. Therefore, it’s a locked-in date that you “share” with other people that share your name; if you happen to have a non-traditional name that doesn’t match with a saint, then you’re out of luck. It’s apparently not uncommon throughout Europe, although I’m familiar with only the Greek (Orthodox) version.

And truthfully, I’m not even all that familiar with that. I never remember when mine is, nor anyone else’s for that matter. If my mother hadn’t reminded me earlier this week, I certainly would have overlooked it again this year. It means something to her, and the fact that my brother and I don’t care for the custom is one more thing that we argue about with her.

Not that the two of us are the only ones who whiff on this. I mentioned it to a cousin who shares today’s name day with me, and she was also unaware. Obviously, it’s a generational thing, along with a cultural one — obviously it’s never caught on in the US, primarily because of the lack of saints among Protestants. I wonder just how celebrated the name day is in Greece and other European countries; I’ve never gotten the sense that it was as big a deal as a birthday, although I’m sure that varies across regions.

Anyway. Nothing in the way of commemoration for this day, other than this online note. I am heading up to Broadway later tonight to catch a show, and while that’s purely coincidental, I guess I can consider it my name-day dividend.