When is Saint Xenia's feast day?

Xenia of St Petersburg and Xenia of Rome are both commemorated on 24 January in the Orthodox Church in America's calendar. Xenia of Kalamata is remembered on 3 May, and Empress Irene, who became the nun Xenia, on 13 August.

Is Oxana the same name as Xenia?

Behind the Name lists Oxana and Aksana among the related forms of Xenia, and Russian uses Kseniya. A girl named Oxana therefore carries a form of the name the Xenia saints bore.

Is Xavier ever a girl's name?

The feminine form is Xaviera, with Javiera in Spanish and Saveria in Italian. Xaviera is the feminine of Xavier, the surname Catholics adopted as a given name in Francis Xavier's honor.

What Are Christian Girl Names Starting With X and Their Meanings?

Xenia is an X girl's name with saints of its own: the Orthodox Church in America lists four women under it. Among them is Xenia of St Petersburg, an eighteenth-century widow who gave away her house and lived for decades as a fool for Christ.

Xaviera has a Christian link of a different kind: it is the feminine form of Xavier, the surname of the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier. No X name appears in Behind the Name's list of biblical women.

Ximena is a medieval Spanish name, known as the name of El Cid's wife, whose Behind the Name entry records no saint or biblical woman. Xena, Xylia and Xiomara fill long Christian lists, but they are not in Behind the Name's list of biblical feminine names, and the lists that call them Christian name no saint or passage for them.

Quick Facts

Biblical women with X names: None in Behind the Name's list of biblical feminine names
Saints named Xenia: Four women on the OCA calendar; the name is Greek for hospitality
Xenia with the fullest OCA life: Xenia of St Petersburg, feast on 24 January
Name given in a saint's honor: Xaviera, after Saint Francis Xavier
Medieval Spanish name: Ximena, the name of El Cid's wife

Does the Bible name any woman with an X name?

No. Behind the Name's list of biblical women's names has no entry under X.

That leaves saints and later naming custom as the only Christian sources for this letter. Xenia is the strongest of them, because the name belongs to women the Orthodox Church still commemorates by name.

Which saints were named Xenia?

Xenia is a Greek name meaning hospitality, formed from xenos, the word for a guest or a foreigner, according to Behind the Name. Russian uses the form Kseniya, and Oxana and Aksana are related forms.

The Orthodox Church in America's calendar of saints lists four women under the name, and two of them share a feast on 24 January.

Saints called Xenia on the OCA calendar
Saint	Feast day	Who she was
Xenia of St Petersburg	24 January	An eighteenth-century Russian widow who gave away her property and lived as a fool for Christ
Xenia of Rome	24 January	Called Eusebia before she took the name Xenia; commemorated together with her two female servants
Xenia of Kalamata	3 May	Commemorated as a great martyr
Empress Irene	13 August	An empress who received the name Xenia when she became a schema-nun

The OCA's fullest account is the life of Xenia of St Petersburg. According to that account, she was widowed at 26 when her husband, Major Andrew Petrov, died suddenly at a party.

She then put on his uniform and asked to be called Andrew Feodorovich, answering to her husband's name instead of her own. She gave her house and possessions to the poor, and officials who looked into her conduct found her to be in her right mind.

For about 45 more years she lived as a fool for Christ, without a home of her own. She died at 71, probably near the end of the eighteenth century, and was buried in the Smolensk cemetery, where a chapel was later built over her grave.

Her story gives the hospitality meaning of Xenia a concrete shape, since she handed her own house to the poor. That connection is a reading of her life, though; the etymology itself records only the Greek word for a guest and promises nothing about a child who carries the name.

Because two Xenias share 24 January, a family naming a daughter for one of them can say which: the widow of St Petersburg or Xenia of Rome. The Empress Irene entry shows a second custom as well, in which an Orthodox woman received Xenia as a monastic name later in life.

Is Xaviera a Christian name?

Xaviera is Christian by honor rather than by origin. It is the feminine form of Xavier, and Xavier entered Christian naming through one man's surname.

Place. Behind the Name derives Xavier from the Basque place name Etxeberria, meaning "the new house."
Surname. Francis Xavier (1506-1552), the Jesuit missionary who worked in India, Japan and East Asia, carried that place name as his surname.
Given name. His surname was adopted as a first name in his honor, chiefly among Catholics, and he is the patron saint of missionaries.
Feminine form. Xaviera is the feminine of Xavier, alongside Javiera in Spanish and Saveria in Italian.

The saint behind Xaviera is therefore a man, and the name's literal meaning goes no further than a Basque house. The meaning "brilliant" that some baby-name lists attach to it has no support in Behind the Name's entries for Xavier or Xaviera.

A daughter named Xaviera is named for Francis Xavier and his missionary work rather than for a woman saint of her own.

Is Ximena a Christian or biblical name?

Ximena is a medieval Spanish name, and its Behind the Name entry records no saint or biblical woman. Behind the Name gives it as the feminine form of Ximeno and records it as the name of El Cid's wife, with Jimena as a variant spelling.

Some baby-name lists say Ximena means "listening" by tracing it to the biblical name Simeon. Behind the Name's Ximena entry does not make that connection, so the meaning stays unconfirmed.

Ximena therefore suits a family drawn to its Spanish history and to El Cid's wife. Any Christian meaning would come from the family's own faith, since Behind the Name records no saint for it.

Xena, Xylia, Xiomara and Xanthe are not in Behind the Name's list of biblical feminine names, and the lists that call them Christian name no saint or passage for them. Xenia and Xaviera are the two X names whose Christian history is documented in Behind the Name and the OCA calendar.