Definition of "Cecilia"

Hark how the flutes and trumpets raise / At bright Cecilia's name, their lays!

1694, Joseph Addison, A Song for St. Cecilia's Day

‘Sissy is not a name,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.’ ‘It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,’ returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another curtsey. ‘Then he has no business to do it,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Tell him he mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?’

1854, Charles Dickens, “Book I, Chapter II”, in Hard Times. For These Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, […]

Because they had named her Cecilia, her parents fancied that the matter of her life and character had been fairly well settled. She would, of course, be quiet and pale and mystical, like the saint whose picture hung above the old upright piano in the Kirby living-room.

1928, Lynn Montross, “Silent Minstrel”, in American Magazine, volume 106, page 14