After revealing her daughter’s name as Elsie Otter last year, New Girl star and new mum Zooey Deschanel has spent plenty of time explaining the meaning behind her tiny tot’s unique moniker.
In a new appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, the 36-year-old offered up a little more insight into how she and hubby Jacob Pechenik came to choose both ‘Elsie’ and ‘Otter’ for their first child.
“We thought Elsie is kind of a classic name, a lot of people have grandmas and aunts named Elsie,” she revealed.
“And then we were like, the middle name can be a little bit…wild.”
The actress went on to say she and Jacob loved that otters were “cute and playful and fun”, eventually settling on Otter because it was likely to be unique.
“We went through different middle names, there were some more normal ones, but then I realised that no one else probably had the middle name Otter. Maybe, but unlikely, and it’s cool, so why not?”
The star welcomed Elsie into the world in July, shortly after she tied the knot with Jacob in a private ceremony.
After taking six months off to be with her darling daughter, Zooey recently returned to the set of her sitcom New Girl, taking over from Megan Fox who had filled in temporarily while Zooey was on maternity leave.
