Actress Eva Mendes is known for keeping her relationship with Ryan Gosling intensely private, so much so that no one knew the couple were expecting their second child until weeks before the baby’s birth. But speaking to Latina magazine, Mendes opened up on the birth of Amada Lee, who shares the name name as her sister Esmeralda Amada.

Eva MendesEva Mendes welcomed second daughter Amada Lee in April

When asked by the magazine why she chose to name both her daughters Amada, Mendes explained: “My grandmother’s name is Amada, and Esmeralda Amada is the name of our oldest. We had a few names picked out for our new baby, and when she was born, we didn’t feel like those names were her."

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"We came up with a few more, even that morning, and tried them out. We were like, 'What about Viviana?' But we just kept going back to Amada. In true Latin fashion, we reuse names all the time. I actually told Ryan, 'This is common in Latin culture, so it wouldn’t be crazy'.

“So we went with Amada because it was something we kept going back to," Mendes added. "When we looked at her, we thought, 'Aww, Amadita.” 

But the happy occasion of Amada’s birth was sadly preceded by tragedy, as Mendes had lost her bother Carlos to cancer just 12 days before her arrival. “Losing my brother brought our family closer, and we were already close to begin with,” Mendes revealed.

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“So to just see everybody be there for one another and show up, I feel so lucky to have them. And then they were there for me when Amada was born. We had a funeral service for him and that same week I had the baby,” she added. “So it was really, really intense and obviously beyond heart-breaking, but also kind of beautiful.”