Arnold Zwicky's Blog

My caregiver at home yesterday and today is a young Mexican man (working on a green card) named Camilo Torres. I was interested in his personal name, which turns out to have an interesting history. Its recent antecedent is a saint’s name. From Wikipedia:

Camillus de Lellis, M.I., (25 May 1550 – 14 July 1614) was a Roman Catholic priest from Italy who founded the Camillians, a religious order dedicated to the care of the sick. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XIV in the year 1742, and canonized by him four years later in 1746. De Lellis is the patron saint of the sick, hospitals, nurses and physicians.

… De Lellis established the Order of Clerks Regular, Ministers of the Infirm (abbreviated as M.I.), better known as the Camillians. His experience in wars led him to establish a group of health care workers who would assist soldiers on the battlefield. The large red cross on their cassock remains a symbol of the Congregation today, worn on their habits, today a universal symbol of charity and service.

Wikipedia image of the saint

De Lellis was beatified by Pope Benedict XIV in the year 1742, and canonized by him four years later in 1746.

In 1886, Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him patron of all hospitals and of the sick. In 1930, Pope Pius XI named him co-patron, with Saint John of God of nurses and nursing associations.

The saint’s name then provided a route to its popularity as a masculine personal name in various Romance languages: Camillo in Latin, Camille in French, Camilo in Spanish and Portuguese.

The antecedent of the saint’s name was apparently the Roman name Camilius, referring to a temple servant or altar boy.

This entry was posted on July 10, 2023 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Language and religion, My life, Names. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.