Catholic Church Name Generator

Every Catholic church is dedicated to a titular patron, and the name follows a small set of established patterns. The largest group is dedicated to a saint: St. Patrick's Church, St. Anthony of Padua Church, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church. The next is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under one of her many titles — Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Immaculate Conception, Mary, Queen of Peace. A third group takes a mystery or title of Christ or God — Sacred Heart, Holy Trinity, Christ the King, Corpus Christi, Blessed Sacrament — or a feast such as the Annunciation, Assumption, or Transfiguration.

The building type matters. A cathedral is the seat of a bishop and is often styled "Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception" or "St. Mary's Cathedral." A basilica is a church granted special status by the pope. A shrine is a pilgrimage church, an oratory is a smaller place of prayer, and a mission is a historic frontier church, especially in the American Southwest and California. Ordinary parish churches are simply "Church" or "Parish," and immigrant communities often chose national saints: St. Stanislaus for Polish parishes, St. Boniface for German, St. Patrick or St. Brigid for Irish, San Fernando or Our Lady of Guadalupe for Hispanic ones.

For fiction, a name should hint at the parish's history — an old downtown cathedral, a mid-century suburban Christ the King, a rural Our Lady of the Prairie — and match the ethnic and regional flavor of the community around it.