Katherine Heigl Had a Really Tough Time Coming Up With a Name for Her Son

From Redbook

You might assume that the more “normal” a baby name is, the easier it was to come up with. But in Katherine Heigl’s case, the exact opposite was true. In a Tuesday appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the Grey’s Anatomy alum opened up about her months-long struggle to come up with the perfect name for her now 4-month-old baby boy.

Heigl, who gave birth to her son in December, told the host that she agonized over her third kid’s name for a long time. “I couldn’t come up with a name for ages. I don’t know why, I just struggled with it,” the Unforgettable actress said. “It’s a big decision, and you don’t want to fail this child with the wrong name.” Very true – toeing the line between a unique name and one that’ll get your kid teased mercilessly on the playground is rough.

Ironically, after all that deliberation, Heigl and husband Josh Kelley wound up giving their son the most obvious name imaginable – his father’s.

“I think Joshua is a beautiful name. And one night I sort of broached it with [Kelley]. ‘How do you feel about a junior?’ And he in the past had said that he hates that idea, he would never be that guy, but I wasn’t finding something that I was responding to,” Heigl remembered. “And he went, ‘Aw, I love that. That would mean a lot to me.’ And I was like, ‘Well, maybe had I known that 9 months ago I would have had a name sooner!'”

Despite loving the name Joshua, Heigl says she is 100% not into the nicknames Joshy, Junior, or J.J. (though she admitted that J.J. is the least terrible of that bunch).

Part of Heigl’s inspiration in naming her son after her husband came from the fact that her own name and family were well-represented in what they’d chosen for their two adopted daughters. The Doubt actress explained that she’d given Adalaide, 5, the same middle name she has (Marie) and had named her oldest girl Naleigh using a combination her mother’s first name (Nancy) and her sister Meg’s middle name (Leigh).

Baby name struggles aside, Heigl also recently spoke out about how much she loves and is grateful for her oft-Instagrammed home life. “It’s so much better than I could have ever imagined, my life and family,” she told ET. “It’s just trying to remember that and be grateful and try and hold onto it ’cause you do get caught up in the minutiae.”

(h/t Us Weekly)

Follow Redbook on Facebook.

You Might Also Like

• 15 Face Masks That Will Seriously Save Your Skin
• Ina Garten’s Go-To Weeknight Dinner Recipes
• 22 Fun Christmas Activities for Kids (That You’ll Get a Kick Out of, Too)