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Japanese Natalia is not in the Bible. The name comes from the Latin natalis, “relating to birth, birthday,” and because early Christians used that word especially for the birthday of Jesus, Natalia came to mean “Christmas Day.” It is a Christian name rather than a biblical one.
What does Natalia mean?
Natalia is the feminine of the Roman name Natalis. The Romans called a birthday dies natalis. In Church Latin the word was used for the birthday of Christ, and that is how the name took on the meaning “Christmas Day.” The same Latin word gives Christmas its name in Italian (Natale) and Portuguese (Natal), and through Old French it became Noël, so Noel and Noelle come from the same root as Natalia.
Natalie is the usual English form and Nathalie the French. Russian and Ukrainian use Natalya or Nataliya, with the familiar short form Natasha, and Portuguese and Hungarian write Natália. The name has traditionally been more common among Eastern Christians than in the West.
Is Natalia in the Bible, or a Hebrew name?
No one named Natalia, Natalie or Natalis appears in the Old or New Testament. The name is Latin, and its Christian meaning dates from the centuries after the Bible was written.
Natalia also has no Hebrew origin and no Hebrew meaning. The Hebrew names that sound nearest to it are Nathan, “he gave,” the prophet who confronted King David, and Nathanael, “God has given,” one of the first disciples Jesus called in John’s Gospel. Both come from the Hebrew verb for “give” and have no connection with the Latin word for birth.
The birth the name points to
The event behind the name is in the Bible. Matthew and Luke both tell of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and Luke records what the angel said that night to shepherds watching their flocks: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:11). That is the birthday natalis came to mean in the Church, and the one Natalia is named for.
Saint Natalia of Nicomedia
The best-known early Natalia was the wife of Adrian, a Roman officer in Nicomedia (now İzmit, in Turkey) during the persecution of Christians in the early fourth century. According to the account kept in the Orthodox Church, Adrian watched Christian prisoners being tortured, asked them what reward they expected from God, and then declared himself a Christian. Natalia was already a believer and had kept her faith hidden. She went to the prison to encourage him, was with him when he was executed, and afterward kept one of his hands at home. She died not long after.
Historians have questioned details of the story, but the couple is still honored together: the Orthodox Church commemorates Adrian and Natalia on 26 August.
A martyr’s “birthday”
The early Church used the same word, natalis, for the day a martyr died. Christians kept the anniversary of a martyr’s death and called it the martyr’s birthday, meaning birth into eternal life rather than birth into this world. Ambrose of Milan wrote in the fourth century that the day of burial is called a birthday because the one who dies is set free and born into the liberty of the Savior. For the same reason, a saint’s feast is normally kept on the day of death rather than the day of birth. So the word inside Natalia’s name served the early Church for two kinds of day: the birth of Christ, and the deaths of the martyrs who followed him.
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