Scarlett Johansson is sharing the inspiration behind her and Colin Jost’s son’s name -- Cosmo! During an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, the Black Widow actress revealed how she and her husband landed on the not so conventional name.
“We just threw a bunch of letters together,” she quipped after Clarkson asked how she and Jost came up with their son’s name. “I just really thought it was charming and our friends liked it.”
While Johansson, 37, and Jost, 40, had the support of their friends, her mother-in-law wasn’t too fond of the name. “Colin’s mom had a little bit of a harder time with it,” she said. “She kept suggesting other versions of it for a while. I was like, ‘He’s already here. He’s out. Like, it’s past that time.”
Clarkson noted the floral connection of Cosmo and his 8-year-old sister, Rose's, names.
“Cosmo is a really sweet little flower that comes in different shades of orange and yellow and stuff like that,” she shared with Clarkson after bonding over having daughters named Rose. “That's why my daughter liked it too.”
Johansson and Jost -- who wed in 2020 -- announced the arrival of their son in April 2021. Following the news of the couple’s little bundle of joy, Jost also shared that his mother “didn’t quite understand” their son’s name.
"After three or four days, she would be like, 'Cosmo? Is it final? Did you submit the birth certificate?'" he recalled to Seth Meyers during an appearance on Late Night.
"We were like, 'Oh yeah, we did that at the hospital.' She's like, 'OK. Interesting. Because I was reading that there's also a name, Cosimo, with an 'i.' So that could also be an option. Maybe you call him Cosimo, that's his real name, and then you could call him still Cosmo?'"
The Saturday Night Live star shared that it was only after his mother met other people with the name that she gave it her approval.
"She lives in Staten Island. Eventually she started meeting various members of the Italian community who have a lot of Cosmo relatives," Jost explained. "And so then she would call and she would say, 'I met someone. They said their uncle's name is Cosmo, so it is OK.'"
"Then she goes, 'There's also a patron saint called Cosmos, so that's another option,'" he added. "We don't need more options [or] worse variants on Cosmo! Thanks, Mom."
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