Cordelia

Latin; Celtic
"heart; daughter of the sea"

Cordelia Origin and Meaning

The name Cordelia is a girl's name of Latin, Celtic origin meaning "heart; daughter of the sea".

Cordelia is exactly the kind of old-fashioned, grown-up name for girls that many parents are seeking for their daughters today. The name of King Lear's one sympathetic daughter, Cordelia has both style and substance along with its Shakespearean pedigree.


If you're torn between Cordelia and the equally lovely Cora, you can always choose Cordelia for long and then call her Cora for short—or Delia, Lia, Del, or even the extremely different Cordie.

Cordelia also appeared in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye, as detective Cordelia Gray in P.D. James's mystery novels, and was promoted by a character on both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel.

And then there's that quote from the heroine of Anne of Green Gables: "I would love to be called Cordelia. It's such a perfectly elegant name."

# 948 in the US

Cordelia Rank in US Top 1000

# 36 on Nameberry

Cordelia Rank in Nameberry Top 1000

Cordelia Popularity

Famous People Named Cordelia

  • Cordelia
    Queen consort of Aganippus of the Franks
  • Cordelia Abidaoud
    Phoenician princess
  • Cordelia Bugeja
    British actress
  • Cordelia de Castellane
    French designer
  • Cordelia Fine
    Canadian,British,Australian psychologist/writer
  • Cordelia Agnes Greene
    physician/suffragist
  • Cordelia Hawkins
    for whom the town of Cordele, Georgia was named
  • Cordelia Scaife May
    American philanthropist
  • Cordelia Adelaide Harvey
    American Civil War nurse
  • (Henrietta) Cordelia Ray
    American poet and educator
  • Cordelia Mendoza
    American antiquarian
  • Cordelia Strube
    Canadian playwright/novelist
  • Cordelia Creigh Wilson
    American painter
  • Cordelia Elizabeth "Betty" Cook
    heroic American WWII combat nurse

Cordelia in Pop Culture

  • Cordelia
    legendary Queen of the Britons; character in Shakespeare's "King Lear"
  • Cordelia Chase
    character in both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel
  • "Cordelia
    " novel by Winston Graham
  • Cordelia
    character in"The Seducer's Diary" by Søren Kierkegaard
  • Cordelia Gray
    the detective in PD James' mystery novels and movies.
  • Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan
    character in the "Vorkosigan" novels
  • Cordelia Starling
    character in video game "Lollipop Chainsaw"
  • Cordelia Gi Randgriz (Valis: The Fantasm Soldier
    video game)
  • Cordelia Banks
    PhD (State of Mind , TV show character)
  • Cordelia Abbott
    "The Young And The Restless"
  • Cordelia Flakk
    character in Jasper Fforde's "Lost in a Good Book"
  • Cordelia Ransom
    character in the "Honorverse" novels by David Weber
  • Cordelia Capulet
    Japanese anime character in "Romeo x Juliet"
  • Cordelia Gallo
    Japanese anime character in "Gosick"
  • Cordelia Glauca
    anime character in Tantei Opera Milky Holmes
  • Cordelia Whinthrop
    Scott, Character in the movie Monte Carlo
  • Cordelia
    pegasus knight from 3DS game "Fire Emblem: Awakening"
  • Cordelia Foxx
    character in "American Horror Story: Coven"
  • Cordelia Underwood
    title character in "Cordelia Underwood: Or, the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League," a novel by Van Reid, published 1999
  • Cordelia
    character in the anime "Diabolik Lovers"
  • Cordelia
    a song by The Tragically Hip
  • Cordelia
    a moon of Uranus
  • Cordelia Carstairs
    character in Cassandra Clare's "The Last Hours"
  • Cordelia
    character in musical "Falsettos"
  • Cordelia Bellamy
    character in the webcomic "Riverside Extras" by Miri Chamberlain

Cordelia in Nameberry Blog Posts