Jenny Slate Almost Gave Her Baby This Unexpected Name
On Feb. 3, 2021, Jenny Slate confirmed she welcome her first child — a baby girl — with fiance Ben Shattuck. The former Big Mouth star jokingly shared the happy news with Entertainment Tonight, telling the outlet, "Yeah, I'm not pregnant anymore. The baby came out!" Slate later opened up about her birthing experience during a virtual chat with Jimmy Kimmel, in which she described what it was like to deliver a baby amid a pandemic. "We weren't sure how it was going to go," she explained before going into more candid detail. "It was like a totally extreme experience during which I lost any filter that I might have already had left," the actress added. "I was just like: 'Did my vagina rip in half?! Does anyone know?! Is it like one vagina still or is it not?!'"
During her interview with ET, Slate also revealed she and Shattuck named their daughter because they "loved" the name Ida, and Lupine because it's one of the couple's favorite flowers. However, it turns out she had another moniker in mind before choosing Ida Lupine. Keep scrolling to find out what unexpected name she almost gave her newborn.
Jenny Slate said she was obsessed with an Eastern European name
Though Jenny Slate and soon-to-be husband Ben Shattuck "loved" the name Ida Lupine, according to what she told Entertainment Tonight, they were also obsessed with another one: Bagrat. After Jimmy Kimmel asked if she gave her newborn a pandemic-inspired name like "AstraZeneca," she told him they were "looking at some Eastern European names" but they decided not to go with it. "One name that we were both obsessed with was spelled b-a-g-r-a-t," Slate explained, revealing that she kept calling the baby "Bag-Rat" while she was pregnant but they ultimately decided on Ida, which is inspired by her Jewish heritage.
The actress also told Kimmel that her daughter is six weeks old now, which would mean she was born at the end of December 2020, just a few weeks after Slate announced she was expecting her first child on during an interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers on Dec. 10. 2020. At the time, she said it was "very nice to have something that is incredibly positive during a time that's hard and sad" — and, after giving birth, Slate told ET that "motherhood is for sure the most meaningful thing that has ever happened to me." She added, "I feel really lucky and happy."