Last week, Kylie Jenner revealed the name of her second child with rapper Travis Scott on her Instagram Story. Given that her first child is named Stormi, there was much anticipation leading up to this announcement. Would Jenner and Scott stick with a weather theme — perhaps Ici, Cloud, Vane? Or maybe they would try something Valentine’s-inspired: Valentino, Cupid, Eros? No. Instead, the famous couple went with what is fast becoming one of the most popular celebrity baby names: Wolf. Okay. Snooze.
In the past five years, celebrity baby names have become more and more uniform, building simply on trends of the past. Stars used to shock the public by arranging letters so that they spelled out things like “Pilot Inspektor” (Jason Lee’s son) and “Moon Unit” (Frank Zappa’s daughter) but their recent name choices tend to follow a simple formula: Boys are animals, girls are boys, and all babies can be named for the city in which they were conceived.
Every Boy Is a Wolf
What is the best way to describe a little boy? In the 2010s, several A-list mommies like Kate Winslet and Alicia Silverstone decided on “Bear.” But in the last few years, the teddy has been killed by the wolf. It started in 2017, when Zooey Deschanel named her son Charlie Wolf. (Her daughter, completing the family zoo, is Elsie Otter.) Then, two years later, former star of The Hills Lauren Conrad named her son Charlie Wolf.
This trend subsequently found its way into the Bachelor community and now is the middle name of choice for all kinds of celebrities including the rapper Eve, who recently named her son Wilde Wolf (he was born one day before Jenner’s Wolf, for the record). Jenner, at least, gets points for dispensing with a more traditional first name and putting all the weight of her child’s personality on Wolf. I’m sure Wolf Blitzer is thrilled.
Every Girl Is a Jim
When Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds named their baby girl James in 2014, we hated it. But several models and other professionally beautiful women heard the siren song of this boy’s name and decided it sounded just girly enough if you put it next to something like Sunshine or Blueberry. Model Coco Rocha named her baby girl Ioni James, and Grey’s Anatomy star Jessica Capshaw named her daughter Poppy James. Last year, Hilary Duff named her third child Mae James, and just this month, model Rosie Huntingon-Whiteley and her husband Jason Statham named their little girl Isabella James.
The trend has even reached wherever they film Duck Dynasty: Last year, star Sadie Robertson named her baby girl Honey James. (The child’s Instagram page, @legithoneyjames, currently has 266,000 followers and describes its subject as a “chunky miracle.”)
People Are Places and Things
In the olden days, Gwyneth Paltrow shocked us by naming her baby daughter “Apple,” and Reese Witherspoon made us laugh by naming her son with CAA agent Jim Toth “Tennessee.” Now, nearly every celeb spawn is a place or a thing. It’s just that the things are more random, and the places are farther away. My personal favorite is Jupiter, the 11-month-old daughter of former Disney star Ashley Tisdale.
Tisdale told Good Morning America last year that she picked the name Jupiter before she was even pregnant. “I said to my husband, ‘Do you like it?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, that is so cool,’ especially because he's got such a great last name,” she said. (His last name is French.) “So... Jupiter French. And then once we found out she was a girl, Chris named her middle name Iris.”
Vanderpump Rules star Scheana Marie also reached for the stars when naming her baby daughter last year and landed on “Summer Moon Honey.” Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansson gestured at the great unknown by naming their son Cosmo. Ed Sheeran and his wife Cherry Seaborn, meanwhile, stayed slightly closer to home in 2020 when they named their daughter Lyra Antarctica. (Naturally, they were inspired by a trip to Antarctica the year before.) And other celebrities decided on more general place names: Last year, Scheana’s Vanderpump Rules co-star LaLa Kent named her daughter Ocean, and former Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell named her daughter Atlas. They could be from anywhere!
Then there are the self-explanatory city names: Jeannie Mai and Jeezy named their baby girl Monaco Mai after a “relationship-changing conversation” they had in France, and Jason Aldean and his wife Brittney named their two children under the age of two Memphis and Navy Rome. (They’ve been busy.)
But the most exciting celebrity baby name in this category comes to us from — but of course — a Victoria’s Secret model named Romee Strijd. In 2020, she named her baby girl Mint. How fresh! And even more interesting when you consider that her husband’s last name is van Leeuwen, making the child’s full name resemble a pint of artisanal Brooklyn ice cream.
