Spotlight on: Cosima

sanctanomina Spotlight, ,

A reader asked for a spotlight on Cosima, what a cool name! This was extra fun to work on because I didn’t really know anything about it until starting to do the research — how neat to discover it’s a feminine form of Cosmas! Like the twin saints, Cosmas and Damian!

In fact, let’s talk about Cosmas for a sec — I love that it’s a Catholicky Catholic name (in the Canon of the Mass, even!), and I love that it’s tailor-made for a twin (along with Cosmas’ actual twin, Damian — this mama did an awesome job incorporating both saints into her twin boys’ names! — and also Thomas, which means “twin”). I even love that Cosmo is one of its variants — who knew that Kramer has such a saintly name?? 😀

But of all the Cosmas variants — Kosmas, Cosmo, Kuzman, Cosimo, Côme, Cosma, Cosme, Cosmin, Kuzma — there’s only one feminine variant, isn’t that interesting?

Cosima is an Italian name, but I don’t think it comes across as overly Italian, do you? I mean, I think a family with no Italian heritage could consider it without raising eyebrows, do you agree? (Not that I think eyebrow-raising names are a bad thing!) In fact, Nameberry says it’s “the kind of elegant and exotic name the British upper classes love to use for their daughters” and that it’s “well used in Germany, Italy and Greece.”

Behind the Name says its pronunciation is KAW-zee-ma, but commenters said they’ve heard KO-zi-muh, KO-see-ma, ka-see-MAH, and cho-SEE-ma — if you’ve heard it in real life, what pronunciation(s) have you heard?

Based on those pronunciations, I can see Cosi (cozy), Cosi (kaw-zee), and Sima being doable as nicknames — can you think of others?

There are a few celebrity babies named Cosima, including the daughters of chef Nigella Lawson and filmmaker Sofia Coppola, as well as the daughter of supermodel Claudia Schiffer, who deserves a special shout-out because of the whole sibling set: Cosima Violet, Clementine de Vere, and Caspar Matthew. Ohhhhh my! ❤ ❤ ❤

I also saw several references to Cosima as a character’s name on the show Orphan Black, which I’m not familiar with, and the daughter of composer Franz Liszt; that Cosima was also the wife of composer Richard Wagner. I didn’t find any saints named Cosima, however.

What do you all think of Cosima? Would you consider it for a daughter? Do you know any Cosimas, and if so, do they like their name? Do they go by a nickname?

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon — perfect for expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady!

15 thoughts on “Spotlight on: Cosima”

  1. Wow, I’ve seen Cosima being mentioned a lot on Behind The Name and such, but I actually never knew where it comes from or anything about it at all. But it seems quite logical now that it must be a feminine form of Cosmas. I’m not very crazy about it – otherwise I’d probably learn more about it earlier haha – but still it’s lovely and I would appreciate it seeing it on someone’s child for its originality. It has a bit of a name nerd-y feel to me, and indeed feels upperclass as well. I LOVE Cosy as a nickname option!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. Thank you for this spotlight Kate! I can’t decide if it’s a feminization I like or not… and having so many more pronunciations than I ever came across does seem to tip towards a no for me. However, the nickname “Sima” actually might fit nicely… my husband’s name is Maksim (“Mac-seem”) and when he was little he called himself Sima! A nice tie to papa if baby ends up being a girl 😊

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. I served in the Army with a girl named Cosima. It was pronounced KOZZ-eh-mah. It’s a really pretty name, though personally I’d not want to fight the pronunciation spelling issues!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. I have a friend whose family is German but now lives in the US. 4 girls: Felicit@s, C0sima, Ann!ka, and D@ria. Their Cosima is pronounced the German way (CO-see-ma) and also goes by Cosi.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment