I would avoid them.

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".

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.

Well, I'm named Crawley by my mother who is very religious...yet I'm an atheist. Could naming have been an influence😅?

You mean the name, John Paul Luke Jesus Mother Mary Sister Christian is out of the question to name a child?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet"

I went with "other". I would not name a child something like Christian or any other name that evokes thoughts of religion. However, Western society has been tainted by the church for so many centuries that there are religious meanings behind a large number of common names. For example, my given name, Danny (NOT Daniel, though it is a derivative), derives from Daniel which means "God is my judge."

Meh. Yes, a lot of the older, more common names have some times to the bible. Not a big deal to me. Conversely, i'm setting on never having children, so kind of a moot point for me.

I have four uncles on my dad's side: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, although not in that order. There are enough religious names in my family, thankyouverymuch.

I make my own destiny anyway. My name is Paul, the guy who in the Bible invented Hell, the worst concept that anyone could imagine up. Did one much better, named my Daughter Paloma, meaning White Dove. She is true to her name of love and Peace.

Maybe as long as it's not faith

Some times is imposible....specially if the the first part of last name is "Saint"

I would definitely avoid it. One thing is that theists could use it against my child at some point in future.

My name's Ian, Scottish for John who 'wrote' a gospel and was a saint, my second name is Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, my third (confirmation name) is Declan, also an Irish saint and the first three letters of my surname spell 'God' There's not point in me making a stand over a religious name! lol

Oh yes...it bothers me no end..

Or pets? A burglar broke into a house one night. He shined his flashlight around, looking for valuables when a voice in the dark said, "I can see you and Jesus can see you too" He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his flashlight off, and froze. When he heard nothing more, he shook his head and continued. Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires, clear as a bell he heard 'Jesus is watching you.' Startled, he shined his light around frantically, looking for the source of the voice. Finally, in the corner of the room, his flashlight beam came to rest on a parrot. 'Did you say that?' he hissed at the parrot. 'Yes', the parrot confessed, then squawked, 'I'm just trying to tell you that Jesus is watching you.' The burglar relaxed. 'huh? Who in the world are you?' 'Moses,' replied the bird. 'Moses?' the burglar laughed. 'What kind of idiot would name a bird Moses?' 'The kind of idiot who would name a Rottweiler Jesus.'

I am named after my father. Our names mean "Messenger of God". We are both non-religious. I think I will follow and pass that name up to my son if I come to have one. I don't mind it being religious.

I always thought Matthias was a cool name. I care a little bit about meaning but only when the name is iffy to me anyways. So went with the first option.

Both our children are named a combination of grandparents names selected for the 'yellablity'. They ended up being the realatively biblically significant names of Anna and David for first names. Middle names were a mixed bag. To us the names mean only that we thought of people close to us... and that we couldn't agree on anything else!

I would pick something out of my ethnic heritage.

Yes! I would never name a son Mary.

My children have been named after wonderful family members and strong people in history . I don't attach many names as having only religious connotations, more historical.

So I'll preface this by saying I'm trying my hardest to never have children ever, so bear with me on that point. That being said, if I did happen to have a kid, I would want to name them after things that are significant to me and my life (or my parter and hers), and totally disregard whether it was a religious name or not. Example: Were I to have a girl, I would name her Alice Liddell, after the character from American McGee's Alice, because that game is awesome.

Kinda hard to avoid that unless you make one up. I'm David and it's a VERY old testament name.

Honestly I don't see religion as a Plague. I never named my kids based on being a bible name... even though some names did appeared in the bible in some form. Let it be bible or popol-vuh... It is being ignored by me.