This past April, Eva Mendes reportedly gave birth to her second daughter with Ryan Gosling—a life event which really threw a wrench in your fictional relationship with The Nice Guys star. (“It’s complicated,” you had to tell your fictional best friend Reese Witherspoon over imagined brunch.) While Mendes and Gosling stay mum on the subject of their relationship, which dates back to their days filming 2012’s The Place Beyond the Pines, the actress has opened up about their daughters and home life in a new interview.

While speaking to Latina magazine, Mendes explained the thought process behind naming their daughters Amada and Esmeralda Amada.

“My grandmother’s name is Amada, and Esmeralda Amada is the name of our oldest,” the actress revealed. “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. 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.”

(At this point, we pause to imagine Ryan Gosling in a hospital waiting room repeating the name ‘Viviana Gosling’ aloud in his singular Canadian-by-way-of-De Niro accent.)

Mendes continued, “In true Latin fashion, we reuse names all the time. I used to know five sisters that were all Maria del Carmen, Maria Elena, Maria liliana . . . I actually told [Ryan Gosling], ‘This is common in Latin culture, so it wouldn’t be crazy.’ . . .When we looked at her, we thought, ‘Aww, Amadita.’”

Even though both girls are under the age of two, Mendes said that she and Gosling are nurturing the sisters’ relationship. “My little one is still an infant, and right now it’s really about surviving those nights and trying to enjoy this time as much as possible with them, and start the bond between Esmeralda and Amada,” Mendes said.

She also shared that the couple are immersing their daughters in her Cuban culture as much as possible—and Mendes is teaching them how to speak Spanish as well as English.

“We’re constantly playing Cuban music,” the actress says of the Mendes-Gosling household. “I speak to them in Spanish, and my mom speaks to Esmeralda in Spanish. Well, now she speaks to both of them in Spanish. Any time I have an opportunity to introduce her or them—I have to say ‘them’ now, though my newborn just sleeps all the time—to my culture, whether it’s through music, or through food, I do.”

Sadly, Mendes did not reveal how the family is introducing Gosling’s Canadian culture to the girls. So we will just have to imagine a television always tuned to ice hockey and maple leaves wallpapering the nursery.

Last month, Gosling, a proud feminist, shared his early observations gleaned from raising two daughters.

“I think women are better than men,” Gosling said. “They are stronger, more evolved. . . . You can tell especially when you have daughters [he now has two with Eva Mendes] and you see their early stages, they are just leaps and bounds beyond boys immediately.”