by Charlotte Deibele
When you’re a kid, a birthday sparks feelings of excitement: You get a party, cake, presents, pretty much everything good in life. However, not all children grew up celebrating their birthdays. Instead, many members of Portland’s Greek American community remember parties to celebrate name days.
In the Greek Orthodox tradition, different days of the year celebrate at least one saint. If you’re named after a specific saint, you celebrate your name day on the day that honors them. For example, if your name is Helen or Eleni, from Saint Helen, then you would celebrate your name day on May 21st.
In Portland, name day celebrations have transformed over the years. Nevertheless, many members of the community vividly remember when, whether in the United States or Greece, practically every family would celebrate name days. These celebrations created connections and a sense of unity within the community, described as something that helped keep the community going.
Growing up in Athens, Ted and John (interviewed for HACCM in 2023) experienced name days regularly. They remember that “every week it was somebody’s name day”, so they would stop at the zacharoplasteío, or pastry shop, and buy pastries and sweets to bring to the parties. They would then go around visiting all the parties held for everybody who shared that name day, each party packed with dozens of people. As retold, the entire neighborhood was involved in maintaining community ties by celebrating name days.
Even as the tradition was carried over to the United States, the sweets and large parties full of people didn’t change. Aneta (interviewed for HACCM in 2024), for example, recounts that her parents shared the name day of Constantinos and Eleni on May 21st. They would throw a big party with a delicious spread of glika, or pastries, and “people in and out all day long”. Birthdays, in comparison, were much more muted, smaller celebrations, if they were celebrated at all. Aneta does remember her mother gradually started celebrating birthdays, but with immediate family only.
Mina (interviewed for HACCM in 2009) also remembers visiting many people’s homes to celebrate name days. However, given there would be multiple families celebrating on the same day, she reflects on the sensitive choice of which parties to attend and when. As she recounts, if you went to one family’s party and not another’s, “there was friction”.
Despite this potential friction, many people have fond memories of the practice. In her interview, Kiki (interviewed for HACCM in 2008) laughs and says that guests wouldn’t bring anything to the parties, they “would expect something”. Not only sweets, but lots of wine, cheese and other delicious food. Families could prepare for months in order to accommodate the guests, because you had no idea who, and how many, would be coming.
As to why the tradition faded, no one has a definitive answer. One likely proposed answer is, like in Aneta’s story, families assimilated to American customs and simply switched over to birthday parties instead. People have also proposed that large, elaborate parties, especially with laborious tasks like working with filo, are less manageable with two working parents, as is more common now. In any case, for most families, the practice of name days has waned, but that doesn’t mean that the tradition is entirely gone. HACCM has also built on the tradition, by hosting communal name day coffee hours.
About the project
HACCM collects the oral histories of community members who can speak to the Hellenic American experience of the Pacific Northwest. Our oral history committee is actively collecting new interviews, and if you are interested in participating, please contact HACCM.
About the author
Charlotte is a student at the University of Oregon studying English. In the summer of 2024, she worked as an intern on the HACCM Oral History Project cleaning up the transcripts of oral interviews through the University of Oregon Portland Internship Experience program.