We are extremely pleased to announce that Leila Catherine Koskimaki was born at about 9:42 a.m. on Monday, November 2, 2015. At her birth, she weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces; and she was 19 inches long.
Not only was this baby once the youngest person in the world, she is my granddaughter. Here is a picture:
The name Leila (and its variants, like Layla) is derived from Hebrew and Arabic names for an angel of the night. The name became popular in the English-speaking world in the early 19th Century due to the popularity of characters with that name in two of Lord Byron’s narrative poems – Don Juan and The Giaour. In 1880, when the U.S. Government began tracking the popularity of babies’ names, it was one of the top 200 names for girls. Its popularity decreased over the next several decades, but it has made a big comeback since 1990. In 2014, it was the 241st most popular name for U.S. babies, and 171st for those born in England.
It is a pretty name.
The song “Layla,” by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, was first released in 1971 on the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, by Derek and the Dominos. It is a good song (Rolling Stone ranked it Number 27 on its list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”) with contrasting movements that were composed separately by Clapton and Gordon.
Eric Clapton has said that the song was inspired by the 12th Century Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi’s, classic poem, “The Story of Layla and Majnun.”
More importantly, in November of 2015, mother and baby Leila are both doing fine.