Our History & Mission

Our Mission

Holy Names High School, a small Catholic school for young women, provides an academically challenging college preparatory education in a vibrant learning environment. Our diverse community nurtures spirituality, encourages artistic expression, and promotes justice, preparing the next generation for leadership and service.

Integral Student Outcomes (ISO's)

A Holy Names Graduate is a Woman of Faith

She demonstrates moral and ethical decision-making and understands her own spirituality while respecting others' belief systems.

A Holy Names Graduate is Intellectually Competent

She is a critical thinker, problem solver, able to express herself orally and in writing, and collaborate with others.

A Holy Names Graduate is Capable of Artistic Expression

She is aesthetically literate and understands works of art and their historical and cultural importance. She values the artistic process as a means of achieving self-awareness, growth, liberation and joy.

A Holy Names Graduate is Committed to Personal Growth
She demonstrates integrity and honesty with confidence. Leadership skills and self-confidence are evident as she sets aspirational personal goals and strives to meet them.

A Holy Names Graduate Serves Others
She understands our school motto, Noblesse Oblige, is a call to recognize, acknowledge and address areas of social inequality, privilege and injustice. She exhibits generosity of spirit and compassion towards others and develops her own voice to speak for the marginalized and disenfranchised among us.

Our History

The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary (SNJM) founded Holy Names High School in 1868. Established on the shores of Lake Merritt at the site of today’s Kaiser Center, the school has the distinction of being one of the first high schools in Oakland. Holy Names Central High School opened its doors at the current site on Harbord Drive in the Fall of 1931.

Holy Names High School has always reflected the time and community it has served. During the thirties, the school shared the poverty of the economic depression. In the forties it experienced the uncertainties and fears of a country at war. As the population of Oakland changed over the last half of the 20th century, so too has the school’s population. Today Holy Names takes pride in a student population comprised of a rich racial, economic and religious diversity that comes together in a strong academic community where Catholic faith and Christian values are an integral part of the daily life of the school.

Our Foundress & the Sisters of the Holy Names

Born Eulalie Durocher in St. Antoine, Quebec, Canada in 1811, Blessed Marie Rose Durocher, foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, was a woman of extraordinary faith and courage. When her mother died, she assisted her brother, a pastor in a neighboring village. in 1843, the local bishop, Igace Bourget, invited her to found a new religious congregation dedicated to the Christian education of the poor in the area. She and two of her friends responded eagerly and immediately began the religious congregation and their first schools. By the time of Marie Rose’s death, only six years after her founding the congregation, thirty Sisters were teaching 384 students in four schools.

The young congregation, known as the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, continued to expand to new locations in Canada and the United States, establishing schools and colleges with high academic standards and an emphasis on the fine arts. In 1868, in response to a request from Archbishop Alemany of San Francisco, the first Sisters of the Holy Names came to Oakland to establish schools in California. Since then the Sisters have founded, staffed and sponsored several high schools and many elementary schools in the United States and Canada. Their mission continues in Oakland today through the work of Holy Names High School, Holy Names University, Next Step Learning Center and in several other parishes and agencies in Oakland.