Oh my god! A and MK&R got me an awesome birthday present! It’s my own American Girl doll. I’ve wanted one for many, many years, but they are so expensive that I’ve never gotten one. When I met A, I was delighted to fawn over her Felicity - we buy clothes for her, and accessories, and things like that. A also has Coconut, and we play with her together too. So I’ve been living vicariously through Felicity for a few years, and after we got back from New York I recounted the American Girl Place story to :MK:, and she said to A that it sounded like I needed my own doll. I thought “oh, that would be nice,” but didn’t think anything more of it. But they got me one! She looks like me: light skin, light brown hair, and green eyes. (My eyes tend to fluctuate between green and hazel, but they’re often green.) I was going to give her a name starting with M, like mine, but A suggested I give her a name with a similar meaning. Various baby name books say that Meredith means “guardian of the sea” or “queen of the sea,” so I searched for baby names that had meanings related to sea, and settled on this:

CORDELIA - f - English
Pronounced: kor-DEL-ee-a, kor-DEL-ya
Meaning unknown, perhaps from a Celtic name meaning “daughter of the sea”. This name was first used in this form by Shakespeare, who used it for one of the daughters of King Lear.

I like the name Cordelia well enough, and it’s from the same area as mine (Meredith is a Welsh name), and has a similar meaning. Plus it has the mixed blessing of having been used in both Shakespeare and Buffy! I am so thrilled with my doll. A also got me the wetsuit and bikini, which I’d wanted when we were in New York but neglected to get. And she got Felicity’s traveling gown, too!