Those Weird Celebrity Baby Names All Have Surprisingly Profound Meanings
Celebrities are known for giving their kids some pretty unusual names. From Blue Ivy to North West, it seems stars would do anything but name their kids something boring and normal, like Ashley or David. But it turns out there’s sentimental and surprisingly deep meanings to these “weird” names than you never knew!
Read on to find out the clever inspirations behind those quirky celebrity baby names.
1. Blue Ivy
When Beyoncé first gave birth to Blue, fans had crazy theories to the reason behind her name, with some even bringing the Illuminati into it. However, in 2012 Beyoncé hinted at the real reason behind her name.
She posted a passage from the novel A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit to her Tumblr account. “The light that gets lost gives us the beauty of the world, so much of which is in the color blue,” the passage stated, hinting that it was the inspiration behind Blue’s name.
2. Moroccan and Monroe
It was no surprise when Mariah Carey chose “M” names for her twins when they were born in 2011, but the meanings have a bit more thought to them. According to a blog post on her site, her son Moroccan was named after the top-tier of her New York City apartment, which is called the “Moroccan Room” because of its decor. It was there that her ex-husband Nick Cannon proposed to her. As for Monroe, it was taken after Marilyn Monroe, of course.
3. North West
Everyone was left scratching their heads when Kim Kardashian gave her first daughter this unusual name, but she cleared things up later.
“It was a rumor in the press and we’d never really considered it seriously, at all,” Kim told GQ. “But Kanye and I were having lunch right over there at that table about a year ago and Pharrell came over to us and said ‘Oh, my God, are you guys really going to call your daughter North? That is the best name.’ I said ‘No we’re not, that’s just a rumor.”
Looks like the rumor stuck!
4. Reign
He might be Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick‘s youngest son, but his name is also the most unusual. However, the inspiration behind his name all comes down to gender.
“I’m never certain [with names] until they’re born,” Kourtney said in 2015. “I actually had the name [Reign] on our list with Mason. Then with Penelope, I had it on the list but spelled R-A-I-N. Once I found out I was having a boy, we just changed the spelling again.”
5. Spurgeon
Counting On‘s Jessa Duggar left fans baffled when she gave her first son with husband Ben Seewald this name. The baby was named after Charles Spurgeon, a British preacher who lived from 1834-1892, but because it would be weird to call a baby that, they just called him Quincy as a nickname. Their second son lucked out with a more conventional name: Henry
6. Cricket
Cougar Town star Busy Phillips didn’t know what to name her daughter when she was born in 2013, so her husband came up with the name Cricket.
“A lot of times your name dictates the kind of personality you have and [my husband’s] like, ‘Everyone likes Cricket, Cricket is just the greatest, happiest kid on the block, the coolest camp counselor, she’s hot in college,’” Busy explained in 2014. “He just had this whole narrative for what that name was.”
Although she got lots of backlash for the name at the time, weirdly enough, today Cricket is now a popular baby name. Go figure!
7. James
James doesn’t sound unusual for a child, but Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively both chose this name for their daughter. They named the baby after Ryan’s father, who passed away in 2015.
“In the spectrum of weird celebrity baby names, I don’t really feel like we’re breaking new ground here,” he joked on Good Morning Britain. “I didn’t call her Summer Squash Meadowlark.”
And on that note, that brings us to…
8. Summer Rain
Christina Aguliera was inspired by nature when she gave her daughter a name that sounds like a candle fragrance.
“I wanted her name to be filled with inspiration, love, and joy,” she explained in 2015. “And that’s exactly what she brings to all who encounter her. Her beauty and sunshine exude from within.”
9. Rainbow
Former Girls Next Door star Holly Madison named her daughter something five-year-old girls name their ponies. But she had a good reason.
“I have always loved the name Rainbow. There was a girl in my school a few years younger than me named Rainbow and I was so envious of her name because it was so pretty and unusual,” she wrote on her blog back in 2013. “She was a perfectly normal, well-adjusted, sporty girl, by the way, so I’m not worried about my daughter being ‘traumatized’ by having an unusual name.”
She kept up the unusual name trend by naming her son Forest.
10. Bluebell
In 2006, fomer Spice Girl Geri Halliwell announced that she named her first daughter Bluebell Madonna to a sea of confused fans.
“What really clinched it for me was my mother telling me that the bluebell is increasingly rare – so it’s a precious flower, which seems just right for my daughter,” she told Hello! magazine at the time. “No one else has that name, apart from the Virgin Madonna and the singer, whom I love.”
11. Apple
Gwyneth Paltrow was the subject of national outrage when she named her daughter Apple, and according to a 2004 Oprah Winfrey Show appearance, she didn’t understand why.
“Her daddy said if it’s a girl, I think her name should be Apple,” she told Oprah. “It sounded so sweet and it conjured such a lovely picture for me – you know, apples are so sweet and they’re wholesome and it’s biblical – and I just thought it sounded so lovely and… clean! And I just thought, ‘Perfect! And then she was born, and it became an international outrage. Which I found surprising because there are people named Rose or Lily or Ivy or June…or lots of pretty nouns!”
