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L’onomastico
January 22nd, 2011 | 
Author: By Brook, Staff Writer, Baby and Sofia (@babyandsofia)
Italians are famous for delicious cuisine, gorgeous landscape, loud accents and most importantly, knowing how to relax and celebrate life. Being a predominately Catholic country, Italians enjoy numerous religious holidays throughout the year. Most religious (and civic) holidays are celebrated by a day or two off from work and school. In addition to the national and religious holidays, different cities celebrate regional holidays. All celebrated by closed schools and offices, of course.
L’onomastico means literally Name Day, and is like a second birthday. Italians generally have traditional, Christian names meaning almost everyone is named for a Catholic saint. Every person celebrates the feast day of their saintly namesake. My husband, for example, is named Giuseppe; the feast day of San Giuseppe is March 19. Every year, we celebrate this day with the same gusto, if not more, than his birthday.
(And since Giuseppe translates to Joseph, March 19 is also Father’s Day in Italy. So it’s an extra special day for all the Giuseppes who are also dads.)
I love having all these extra reasons to celebrate our life. And I am so happy to bring these celebrations to our life here in the United States.
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My entire family converted to the Catholic church when I was 6 years old. We really got into all the feast days & it’s something I hope I will get back into as my son gets older. My husband isn’t Catholic, so it’s a little interesting getting him involved because he thinks I’m just crazy! haha
This is a very cool post, I love learning about how other countries do stuff!