Your Name

Dear Cordelia,

I love your name. I love love love love love your name. I love the way it rolls off my tongue: Cordelia Capri. It's so pretty. I hope one day you feel the same and never hate it for being unique or a bit unconventional. I'll tell you where I got it from.

Your Daddy and I do not agree on names. It took us ages to name your sister and I was pretty happy when I was able to find out halfway through my pregnancy that you were a girl. That narrowed down the name choices by half. At least we had a gender!

As with Rachel's pregnancy, we went to baby name books for ideas. I can't even remember how many books we went through. It feels like about 100 when I think back, but I'm sure it wasn't that many. I would get about 5 at a time from the library and just devour them, passing them back to your Dad to let him have a look through for something, anything that we could both agree on.

Also, like when I was pregnant with Rachel, Daddy and I would regularily toss out names that were quickly and forcefully shut down by each other. We could not agree on anything! Between you and I, your Daddy has horrid taste in names.

Finally, one day I was looking through a book:(I think it was: The Penguin classic baby name book 2,000 names from the world's great literature by Grace Hamlin) and it had a bunch of names from literature. There were so many older, classic, rare names in that book and one of them was Cordelia, from Shakespeare's King Lear. I called that one out to your Daddy (I can even picture where I was, sitting on the couch in the TV room, closer to the door) and he said something, sort of commenting on how that was a name from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (true! And I do love that show), but all I heard was the absence of NO! I knew that was it. He pretended to not like it over the next few months, and hem and haw and say that he wasn't agreeing to it, but I knew I had him and Cordelia was going to be your name.

From there, I needed a middle name. We had sort of set something up with Rachel having the double consonant name. Daddy really liked that and insisted that your middle name be a hard C/K sound as well. That was limiting!

I don't remember when it was exactly, but I got a new CD from the library by Colbie Caillat.  I listened to it one morning while commuting to Lansdowne Children's Centre in Brantford. When I was a couple blocks from work, the last song started to play. The first line was: "She's got a baby inside" and my ears perked up.  By the chorus, I was tearing up and knew that I had found your middle name. I went home that night and told Daddy that your name was Cordelia Capri and he said I was having a 'hippy moment' and that Capri was not a name. I googled. It's not technically, but it's an island and a car and a pizza place on the corner of Wonderland and Sarnia.  And a pant, of course. But, once again, I could see that your Daddy was going to come around. I offered Caprice as a compromise, but he didn't like it. He tries to pretend that the names I pick out are weird, but inside I know he loves that your name is unique.

And so, Cordelia Capri it was.

Capri
She’s got a baby inside
And holds her belly tight
All through the night
Just so she knows
She’s sleeping so
Safely to keep
Her growing
And oh when she'll open her eyes
There'll be no surprise
That she'll grow to be
So beautifully
Just like her mother
That’s carrying
Oh Capri
She’s beauty
Baby inside she’s loving
Oh Capri
She’s beauty
There is and angel growin’ peacefully
Oh Capri
Sweet baby
And things will be hard at times
But I've learned to try
Just listening
Patiently, oh Capri
Sweet baby
Oh Capri
She’s beauty
Baby inside she’s loving
Oh Capri
Your beauty
Just like your mother
That’s carrying...Oh Capri


Love Mommy