Celebrity Baby Names: What’s the big secret?

By Abby Sandel

Karolina Kurkova recently welcomed her second son. John Oliver announced that he’s a new dad to a baby boy, and word is that David Tennant has a new daughter.

So far, we’ve yet to hear the names those famous families have chosen for their new additions.

Is delaying the name announcement the new norm?

It’s not always that way, of course. Earlier this year, we waited just a few days to learn that Will and Kate named their new princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana. The unusual baby name Beyonce and Jay-Z chose was outed by Beyonce’s celeb BFF, Gwyneth Paltrow, in a congratulatory Tweet.

At other times, the new parents might be truly divided on which name to choose – a situation many of us can relate to! The Kardashian family is known for oversharing, but it took nearly a week for us to learn the name of Kourtney’s youngest, apparently because she and Scott Disick took nearly that long to agree on Reign Aston for their second son.

But more and more often, we’re waiting months – even years – before we learn the names that our favorite high profile families choose.

Let’s take a look at nine celebrity families who made us wait to learn their children’s names.

Suri – Back in the ancient days of April 2006, before the launch of Twitter, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes welcomed a daughter, but that’s about all TomKat shared for months. The couple’s relationship made headlines from the moment Tom jumped on Oprah’s couch. Interest in the new arrival was sky high, but it wasn’t until the October 2006 edition of Vanity Fair that we learned the unusual name Tom and Katie had chosen for their daughter. The five-month wait wasn’t the longest on this list, but it might have been one of the most memorable.

James – Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds welcomed a daughter at the end of 2014. Rumors about the new arrival’s name were rampant. For a few days, it looked like her name was Violet, leaked by a hospital employee. But the new dad waited until March 2015 to confirm her name on a TODAY Show appearance. It generated yet another set of headlines over her borrowed-from-the-boys name.

Caspian – Many of us grew up with Neve Campbell, as she graduated from the sensitive sister on Party of Five to the resilient Sidney, facing down Ghostface in the Scream series. There was no official birth announcement for son Caspian, but a few months after his August birth, she did reveal that she and husband JJ Feild had sought out a name as unusual as her own.

Christopher Carlton – Actor Benedict Cumberbatch has one of the most distinctive names in Hollywood today, so we were all curious to hear what he and Sophie Hunter would name their firstborn. They welcomed their son in July, but it wasn’t until September that we learned the couple had stuck with the classic Christopher for their son’s first name, and chose family name Carlton for the middle.

Edie – Keira Knightley and James Righton welcomed their daughter in May, but the new mom waited until an interview for the September issue of Elle magazine to reveal her daughter’s name.

Elsie Otter – Zooey Deschanel and husband Jason Pechenik became parents in July, but their daughter’s delightfully quirky name wasn’t revealed until this October. Edie and Elsie are the latest nickname-names to grace celebrity baby announcements, following Sadie, Hattie, Winnie, and Frankie in recent years.

Esmeralda – Rumors flew in the weeks after Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling welcomed their daughter. Several sources reported that they’d named her Preciosa, the Spanish word for precious. Instead, in October we learned that her name was Esmeralda, and a few weeks later, Eva shared that she and Ryan were inspired by The Hunchback of Notre Dame to choose the gemstone name for their daughter.

Elula – Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen welcomed their first child back in 2007, and named her Olive. Since they’d chosen such an ahead-of-the-curve name the first time, we were curious to know what they’d name baby number two. Their daughter arrived in August of 2010, but we didn’t learn her name – Elula Lottie Miriam – until March 2011. Their third child was born earlier this year, but we learned Montgomery Brian Moses’ name not long after his March arrival.

Atlas – The record for the longest-delayed name announcement might belong to Edward Norton. He and Shauna Robertson welcomed a son in March 2013, but it was nearly two years later that we learned his name – Atlas. That puts the couple exactly on trend. Atlas re-entered the US Top 1000 after more than a century’s absence, and is currently at its most popular.

Are there any delayed celebrity baby name announcements that I’ve missed?