Do you celebrate name days instead of (or in addition to) birthdays?

[KreKre]

We did adopt Pagan customs, like the Ember days, so I guess this wouldn't be much worse than that.

[Kaesekopf]

If Jovan were here, he could tell you about Slava - the Serbian tradition of a family's patron saint.  So not only do individuals celebrate their own name day, but your family has a patron that you all celebrate on their day.

How did they pick the patron saint?  Is it just handed on for generations? 

[Melkite]

How did they pick the patron saint?  Is it just handed on for generations? 

I'm not entirely sure.  When I was reading up on it, I found that some people trace it back to the first person in their family to convert when Christianity arrived in Serbia.  If true, that sounds like it started as a Christianization of ancestor worship to me.  Whether that is ubiquitous, or even the most common form today, I don't know.

I know of a non-Serb family that adopted the practice for themselves.  They picked a saint that they had a particular devotion to.  But they are converts to Orthodoxy from Protestantism, so I'm not sure if doing it that way is common among the Serbs or if it's just what they did themselves.

[Kaesekopf]

How did they pick the patron saint?  Is it just handed on for generations? 

I'm not entirely sure.  When I was reading up on it, I found that some people trace it back to the first person in their family to convert when Christianity arrived in Serbia.  If true, that sounds like it started as a Christianization of ancestor worship to me.  Whether that is ubiquitous, or even the most common form today, I don't know.

I know of a non-Serb family that adopted the practice for themselves.  They picked a saint that they had a particular devotion to.  But they are converts to Orthodoxy from Protestantism, so I'm not sure if doing it that way is common among the Serbs or if it's just what they did themselves.

Yeah.  I can kinda see how it'd be really cool to honor the ancestor who converted to Christianity, but, I'm not sure how practical that is nowadays.   

I do like the idea of patron saints for the family, though, and then asking for their intercession repeatedly.