Naming ceremonies are great fun!  It’s a chance to have a big party to welcome your new child into the world. It might be your very small baby, it might be for a first or older birthday, or for an adopted child coming into your family, or indeed for two families joining together.

You can make promises in front of families and friends about how you want to bring up your child, and you might choose to have “guideparents” (some people call them “sparents!”) to be an extra support as you child grows up.

We’d sit down together to make a plan about how you want the ceremony to go. There are some beautiful poems and readings that we might include.  Or maybe someone wants to play some music or sing. We might decide to include symbolic gestures such as a tree with leaf messages from everyone there, or maybe a sand ceremony where different members of the family fill a jar with coloured sand.  It’s always lovely to have something you can keep as a reminder of the day.

And of course, at some point, we’ll officially name – and welcome - your child 🌝

As a mother of four, I wish naming ceremonies had been common when my children were young!