Rosanna and I have been fielding numerous questions about Cosimo's name and how we chose it. The short answer goes something like this: uncommon, internet list, cute. Naturally there is a longer answer, so if you're truly interested, read on!
We wanted a name that is uncommon, doesn't remind us of students who gave us nightmares, and wouldn't lead to trite or idiotic nicknames. Also, Rosanna is half Italian so we wanted an Italian name to go with his middle name of Gabriele (his grandfather's name). As we were going through internet lists of Italian names we both had a strong reaction to Cosimo and put it on the short list. In the end, it was the only name that survived the capricious whims of soon-to-be parents.
FYI: The Italian pronunciation goes something like this (and yes, gesturing wildly with your fingers pinched together REALLY does help the pronunciation!) ko-SEE-mo. Our bastardized pronunciation requires no gesturing, and goes like this: KO-see-mo.
Part of the vetting process for the name (yes, we were overcomplicating things, but we didn't give a hoot), I researched who in history had that name. I really didn't want there to be an Italian tyrant named Cosimo. When I googled the name the only major historical figure to come out was the grandfather of Lorenzo de Medici. A Renaissance-era patron of the arts? Hey, I'll take that.
Cosimo is, of course, the Italian form of Cosmo, which in Greek means "orderly universe." Again, I'll take that. The only unfortunate part is the obvious: Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld. Luckily Seinfeld is not quite at the same level of fame as it was ten years ago, and the youth of today don't have a clue about this. Something tells me the future friends of Cosimo also will be relatively clueless.
There is also the patron saint of surgeons, Saint Cosmo and his brother Damian. Of course, being a doctor or a surgeon back in the day meant you were in expert in leechcraft. Saint Cosmo and his brother lived quite a life. They healed whoever they treated, and always refused payment. When Damian took a payment, God ultimately forgave him. A local tyrant, back then known as kings, heard of them and had them questioned. Not liking the answers he had them bound and thrown into the sea. Naturally, with saints you can't just expect them to die that easily. Ultimately the tyrant gave up trying to kill them after failing at having them stoned and shot with arrows. Those darned stones and arrows just reversed course and flew back to their owners. What do you expect when you're messing with saints? Or maybe the canonization process way back when wasn't quite so rigorous with oral testimony. Either way, Cosmo, Cosimo, Kozmo is a cool name.
A final anecdote about Cosimo. About three weeks ago I learned that (gasp) a celebrity named their child Cosimo. The only celebrity to name their child this cool and fun name is, my favorite musician: a man I believe is a relatively unrecognized musical genius of our time, Beck! Incidentally, California Pacific Medical Center allows you bring iPods and such to the delivery rooms. We put our Touch on the genius setting and, strangely enough, the playlist kept coming back to Beck even though I have a number of other possibilities for it to choose.
After telling our story about the name, and being asked about how to pronounce it, we realize now that our child is burdened with spending a good deal of his life giving pronunciation advice and telling these same silly stories. But hey, that beats being asked if you were named after the character in Bewitched!
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