In Sweden we celebrate namedays. Every day has 2 names attached to them and today, November 22nd is Cecilia and Sissela. A common question I get in regards to this: what if your name doesn’t have a day? Well, sorry… bad luck… There are so many new names so it is impossible to have all names. Thou they change names now and then to update to the more popular names and the really old ones are going out.
What do we do for namedays then? Actually not much more than say Happy Name Day if we know someone with that name. It is not like we are giving each other gifts. The tradition with name day was intentionally meant to reduce the highlight of birthday, especially if the birthday wasn’t anything positive to celebrate or in the incident that the actual birthday was unknown.
We celebrated name day when I was a child, mainly because my birthday is so close to Christmas and always is forgotten in the season craziness. It was also a way for me to have a little bit separation of all gifts, not all within a couple of days or at once. But now, naaah… and here in the US not many have ever heard about it.

The name Cecilia is a name that fits me perfectly. It is originating from Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Not only that, Saint Cecilia was blind and for those of you who don’t know me personally, I’ve already had 4 eye surgeries at the age of 2.
I did a little research on my name and was surprised that it was the the 43rd most used name in Italy 2018. Well, it is an Italian name but hasalso very popular in the UK and Sweden in the last few years.

I love my name. Sadly it is quite hard to pronounce in English it seems, or at least remember. Which I can’t understand with the amount of famous songs with the name. But that is why I have so freaking many nicknames. As I grew up my family called me Cissan [cizzan]. No clue where that came from. We were a couple of Cecilia in my school and to separate us they called us by our last name… but that didn’t work for me because that was even more complicated. One day I sang a Cilla Black song and that’s how I got the nickname Cilla. Well then I moved over here and Cilla is more connected with Priscilla which is not even close to my name. And just to make it easier I said, just call me “C”. And that has been stuck for a long time. I don’t really care what you call me, whatever is easiest for you to say or remember.

So Happy Name Day to me and all Cecilia and Sissela out in the world!!!