Posted
on July 20, 2016
In
the past, in Bulgaria, people were supposed to be ready to feed and
entertain any and all guests who drop by, uninvited, on their name
day. For example, all the Ivans had to be ready to feed
gosh-knows-how-many people on January 7, and all the Darias had to be
ready on March 19.
Since
people presumably knew more than one Ivan or Daria, I'd think it
would've been tough to make a rough guess of how many guests to
expect. I guess you made a giant pot of food and...waited?
It's
generally not that way, anymore. (Thank goodness!) These days, the
person with the celebrated name invites family and friends to his or
her home, or even to a restaurant, and things proceed quite like a
birthday party.
Today
is the name day for people with one of these names: Iliya, Iliyan,
Iliyana, Ilka, Ilko, and Lilo.
And
all of these names are in honor of St. Elijah Day. (The Bulgarian
version of “Elijah” is Iliya.) All Bulgarian name days are associated with
Eastern Orthodox saints.
 |
This painting by Swedish artist Fanny
Brate shows people preparing for a
name day celebration. |
Name days! Is that a thing?
Bulgaria
isn't the only place where name days are celebrated. Many European
peoples have name days and the tradition spread to Latin American
countries, as well. In Spanish-speaking South American and Central
American countries, name days (called onomásticos)
are no longer celebrated with parties and presents, except by a
minority of the most traditional families.
I
would think that it would be hard to have name days, at least in the
some places, in modern times. After all, so many parents are not
choosing from a handful of traditional names and saints' names; many parents choose
names from other cultures, or from pop culture, or tweak more
ordinary names to become unique, or even choose place names or
ordinary words as their children's names. Here are a few names of the
children of stars:
Soccer
player David Beckham's son Cruz
Actor
Nicholas Cage's son Kal-el (Superman's birth name)
Actress
Blake Lively's daughter James
Singer
Mariah Carey's son Moroccan
Actress
Gwyneth Paltrow's daughter Apple
Musician
Toni Braxton's son Denim
TV
host Paula Yates's daughter Little Pixie
Celebrate
Bulgaria!
Here
are some wonderful things Bulgaria has to offer:
Eastern
Orthodox architecture, such as Rila Monastery and Sokolski Monastery
Sunsets
on the Black Sea
Also
on this date:
Plan
ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
Today is Saint Paraskeva's Day. This female saint, who is also called St. Petka, is said to be the protector of home and family. Name days are important in Bulgaria, so those named Paraskeva, Petyo, Petka and Petko, Petkana, Penka, Parush, Petrich, Petra, Pencho, and Keva are celebrated today.
A traditional meal for Petkovden is veal or mutton, stuffed vine leaves, tripe and onion soup, and bread.
