Ed Sheeran Reveals Baby Daughter's Strange, Chilly, Musical Name

Sabrina Rojas Weiss

September 1, 2020 at 9:42 PM·3 min read

Given all that 2020 has dumped on the world, we are so grateful for the little bits of light that are celebrity baby announcements this year, including the latest news that Ed Sheeran and wife Cherry Seaborn have welcomed a baby girl. The singer announced the birth of his daughter in a rare Instagram post on Tuesday. While we haven’t yet seen the little one or heard her no-doubt excellent pipes, we know she is already blessed with a musical and offbeat name.

“Ello! A quick message from me as I have some personal news that I wanted to share with you,” Sheeran wrote Tuesday morning, sharing a pic of a small knitted blanket and baby socks. “Last week, with the help of an amazing delivery team, Cherry gave birth to our beautiful and healthy daughter — Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran.”

We thought it would be hard to top “Cherry Seaborn” as awesome names in that family, but it looks like they’ve done it!

View this post on Instagram

Ello! A quick message from me as I have some personal news that I wanted to share with you… Last week, with the help of an amazing delivery team, Cherry gave birth to our beautiful and healthy daughter – Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran. We are completely in love with her. Both mum and baby are doing amazing and we are on cloud nine over here. We hope that you can respect our privacy at this time. Lots of love and I’ll see you when it’s time to come back, Ed x
A post shared by Ed Sheeran (@teddysphotos) on Sep 1, 2020 at 1:01am PDT

Lyra is a name of Greek origin that means lyre or harp, which is pretty fitting for the daughter of a famous musician. The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics reported that Lyra was the 150th most-popular name for girls born in 2019. According to BabyNames.com, the name currently ranks #680 in U.S. births (those are 2018 numbers), but it’s at #94 on that site’s popularity list. Some have also speculated that Sheeran named his daughter after the character in His Dark Materials, Lyra Belacqua, since he had previously declared his love for the Philip Pullman books.

Now, Antarctica is another matter entirely. We are so curious as to why the Seaborn-Sheerans chose the frozen continent for their daughter’s middle name. Other than the fact that it is also a name of Greek origin (meaning: opposite of Arctic), we’re not sure what it has to do with their baby girl. Maybe quarantine has the couple itching for exotic travel?

Well, they’re happy to be homebound for now, at least.

“We are completely in love with her,” Sheeran’s post continued. “Both mum and baby are doing amazing and we are on cloud nine over here. We hope that you can respect our privacy at this time. Lots of love and I’ll see you when it’s time to come back, Ed x.”

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Here are some of the other creative celebrity baby names we love.