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Did giving a saint’s name to a child at baptism signify a special link between one or both parents and the saint, or was it a way of establishing patronage between the saint and the baptised child? Did it mean proposing a moral and religious role-model for the child, in which case the Italian practice of feminizing the names of male saints appears at odds with this aspiration? Or did those who chose the name intend above all to honour the saint so as to receive in return “honour and profit” themselves, thus strengthening the link with the saint through the name they were bestowing on their child? This article draws on baptismal registers and family records from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Florence, as a contribution to the debate on differences in naming practices between Mediterranean countries and those of further north in Europe.