Well to be honest, my name is a derivative from a religious standpoint. If it meant that much to me, I'd change my name. having said that a name is just a name. It's derivation is really unimportant. Most who encounter that person will not even know or care about the names derivation unless it is obvious like mine. Even with that who cares.

I think so many names could be traced to a religious origin that it's kind of a fool's errand to try to avoid it. If a name sounds pleasing and doesn't have some weird connotation or would somehow be easy for eventual middle school peers to make fun of ... I'd use it. My wife is a stickler for "flow". She likes the first / middle / last name to roll off the tongue. A counterexample ripped from today's headlines: Hope Hicks. That's rather jarring / harsh and shares no vowels, and it leads to things like this headline I saw today: "Hope Hicks' House hack hoax".

I would avoid them.

Meh, it's not something I'd get too hung up about. While names may derive from religious origins, things change over time and certain names/customs trancend their original meanings. So I certainly wouldn't avoid names that derive from religions provided they are not some overly spiritual name I guess.

My surname is garden so if I had children they'd be Herb, Rose and Lilly, the pet cat would be scruffy

My oldest son is named Matthew. When I first told his father (we were not married/together) he said "Biblical, but I like it". I had forgotten Matthew was an apostle when I named him. Names are names to me. Nothing more, nothing less.

When we named our son 44 years ago, we chose Ziff. Now he tells people we were hippies. I tell them we were high! Lol (It's a Romanian-Jewish last name and a Swiss-German word that means "paragraph " or "number one." I only admit to him being #1 (and that we were high). He still loves it, by the way.

Well, I have a Jewish friend whose parents named her Christine because they just liked the name. Yeah, she never understood that, but it was never a problem.

If I ever had an offspring they would get named after a musician or comic book character

I gave my sister my favorite name for a boy and she named my nephew like that: Yaveh. You have no idea how it upsets Christians. I tell my nephew he has the name of a judeo-christian mythological god. It's perfect, and we all love the name.

Never

My son is Michael and my daughter is Kristen. She's an atheistic agnostic, and we have had a couple of laughs over the meaning of her name. EDIT: I tried to talk a coworker out of naming her daughter Lillith though. This woman is religious and didn't have a clue about the origin of the name.

I wouldn't avoid names with religious connotations at all. In fact many of my favourite names are from religious mythology: Rebecca (I prefer Rebekah), Ruth, Athene, Artemis, Phoebe, Eve, Rachel, Abigail, Persephone, Hannah, Esther, Lilith, Magdalena... and various others.

I better not have kids cause I have awful name ideas in mind..I mean, I want a cat to name itb Mewphistopheles.

I care more about how it sounds. Michelle -- Named after a hockey player only pronounced differently. his is MEE-SHELL Julia -- Named after my mom Steven -- Stevie Ray Vaughan lol...yep his middle name is Ray too. My siblings and I... Remember my mom was raised Catholic. Daniel, Patricia, Mark, Paul, and Jeffery. Jeffery is the oddball because they let me choose between two names when I was 4 years old. I thought Jeff sonded like Jet so I picked that one. lol I don't remember what the other name was. He might as well have the odd name since the boy ain't right anyway.

I care about both the meaning of the name, AND the sound of it...and therefore it's gonna be a hard pass on religious names, or just anything naming in relation to religion.

I would not have a child. 61 and so far so good.

My older daughter is Rebecca but I call her Becky. My younger daughter is Jessica but I call her Jesse which was probably somewhere in the Old Testament. However, both names really were based on characters from "One Life to Live."

I'd prefer not to, but... Well, my name is Joseph. "God will increase". My brother's is Matthew. "Gift of Yahweh". My sister has the less religious but even more ironic name of Naomi; "Pleasantness". It's not easy. But, there are pretty good names that aren't religious. Andrew. Charles. Lewis. All those things.

When I named my kids I was looking for classical name, and also a practicing Xian. I have Sarah, Michelle, and Rebecca. I still like the names despite their religous links.

Ironically, many of the names in the Bible have underlying meanings, so are often more likely literary constructs to convey a meaning than a particular person. For Example: Jesus Christ Means Savior Messiah. Judas: Means literally the Jews. So Ironically the Messiah was Betrayed by the Jews....

Nope. My son's name is about as religious as it gets, but I don't care. I named him after a musician and an antitheist author. Despite his name, he's plenty atheist.

We sometimes forget that, just because the name of a character, (who may or may not have ever existed) was made famous by that work of fiction known as the Bible, doesn't necessarily make that name 'religious.'

Lol I was just thinking about this the other day. I never liked religious names. Actually I just hate them! Naming someone after someone in a religious text doesn’t mean they’ll be any closer to a saint than your ordinary person with an ordinary name. Or “worldly” name as the religious people would say. Being named after someone like a scientist would be badass, though!

I am named after a scientist Lord Kelvin. One of the last great 19th century thinkers. He had over 200 papers puplished before he was 21. Did work on superconductivity (hence the SI unit) and helped design the 1st trans-atlantic phone cable. How many other scientist names would make good 1st names? Ohm perhaps? Watt maybe? Newton for sure. Wouldnt it be great if our kindergarden classes were full of Dawkinss, Darwins, Rutherfords and Curies. Cricks, Mendels and Pastures?