Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos talked the battle of the baby names on Live with Kelly and Mark this morning.
While Ripa noted that they “didn’t have people fighting over baby names” in their family, she shared that people are now “claiming baby names before they’re even pregnant,” which she called “entitled.”
“So like if they’re discussing their friend’s pregnancy and their friend says, ‘I was thinking of naming the baby Samuel,’ [they’re like], ‘Samuel’s one of my names, you can’t use it,’” she explained.
Consuelos said “that probably happens in families” as opposed to between friends, though Ripa revealed that she knows a Live employee who “said it happened to them.”
“So I don’t know,” Ripa added.
Consuelos replied, “Really? Would you still be friends? I mean, you don’t have any jurisdiction over what your friend names their kid, do you?”
He called the phenomenon “weird,” and suggested to those experiencing it to “get a new friend.” Afterward, he asked Ripa if she could imagine if one of their friends told them they couldn’t name their daughter Lola, prompting them both to remember “a very funny story.”
“Chris Rock called me when he was expecting his first daughter,” Ripa recalled. “I had just had Lola. And he said, ‘Listen, Malaak and I are thinking about naming the baby Lola, and we just wanted to check with you to see if that was ok,’” referring to Rock’s ex- wife, Malaak Compton-Rock.
She continued, “I was like, first of all, I don’t own the name Lola. I didn’t trademark it. And second of all, we can all agree, Lola Rock is an amazing name. Like do you mind if I change Lola’s last name to Rock?”
After Consuelos deemed Rock’s gesture “polite,” Ripa highlighted that “it never occurred” to her to do something like that.
“I’m not the only Kelly, you’re not the only Mark,” she added, before teasing Live EP Michael Gelman. “Michael, I hate to break it to you. You are the only Gelman.”