What is a babynaming ceremony?
In the last thirty years, parents, eager to celebrate the birth of their daughters and their entry into the covenant, Jewish parents have created a wealth of ceremonies, prayers and rituals to welcome baby girls. Traditionally, male children are welcomed into the covenant and community of the Jewish people through a brit milah [ritual circumcision]; although there were various traditional ceremonies for girls, they were lesser in status and did not incorporate the idea of covenant.
Since there is no fixed, prescribed ritual for girls, families are free to create their own unique ceremony. (The material on this site will help you do just that.) Today, many parents also choose to enhance their sons' brit milah with elements borrowed from girls' babynaming ceremonies.
What to name a babynaming?
Baby naming ceremonies for girls have a variety of different names: Simhat Bat (the joy of a daughter), Brit Bat (covenant of a daughter), Zeved Habat (gift of a daughter, a traditional Sephardic ceremony), and many more. You may choose any of the many possible names for your ceremony. Families choosing to include a covenantal element (see below) in their ceremony are more likely to use the word "brit" in the ceremony's name.
The Covenant
The heart of the brit milah ceremony is the physical act of circumcision through which a male child is entered into the covenant of Abraham. ("The covenant" is the eternal contract between God and the Jewish people promising that we will keep faith with one another.)
Although there is no explicit commandment to enter a girl into the covenant, many families today see it as a moral imperative. Others are more hesitant to create new commandments; their rituals will focus more on the celebratory aspects of the child's birth and less on the covenant. Still others interpret the conferring of a name itself as entry into the covenant for a girl based on the matriarch Sarah's name change (as ordered by God, see Genesis 17:15-16).
For those who emphasize covenant, there is no prescribed physical equivalent to circumcision. Instead, people have come up with a variety of alternatives, some physical, others spoken.
In the Entering the the Baby into the Covenant section you will find both prayers and rituals for the occasion. You will probably want to choose only one of these ritual actions so that the ceremony centers on a single physical act representing the covenant.
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