Actually, you find the story quite a bit in anime made in the 80's and early 90's. I bet its more of a reference to that.

The Ceres/Celes may have the typical connection of the authors just wanting to reference past games. Highwind has been the last name of three characters in the series for instance... This of course is assuming Celes' name isn't a translation issue much like the famous Aeris/Aerith one. Celes could be short for Celestial which ironically counters Terra's name for balance despite Terra's true name being Tina.