Kieran Culkin apparently had many names in mind for his second child ― but when the time came to pick one, he and wife Jazz Charton were wracked with indecision.
Appearing on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” Tuesday, Culkin shared his 3-month-old son’s name, Wilder Wolf, for the first time publicly. The actor went on to describe the reason he and Charton opted to “torture” themselves rather than settle on a moniker immediately after their son’s birth.
“My wife wanted Wolf. She was fighting hard for Wolf,” the “Succession” star said. “We found it in the hospital the day that he was born and we thought, ‘That’s great,’ but instead of pulling the trigger on it, let’s torture ourselves for about seven weeks, disagreeing with names before we came around to the name that we picked.”
The process was further stalled, Culkin explained, once Charton was given the option to “hold the baby in for an hour and a half” while receiving antibiotic fluids while getting an epidural.
Watch Kieran Culkin’s appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” below.
“We just went over every name that we had thought of,” he said, “And we narrowed it down to two girl names that we really liked, and we agreed that it was going to be one of those two names if it’s a girl, and if it’s a boy, we’re screwed. And we had a boy and spent seven weeks arguing about names.”
When DeGeneres suggested the couple had nine months prior to Wilder Wolf’s birth to discuss names, Culkin quipped, “That would take some organization and some planning ― not something that either of us do.”
Culkin and Charton wed in 2013. The couple also share a daughter, 2-year-old Kinsey Sioux.
Elsewhere in the interview, Culkin recalled fulfilling his goal of hosting “Saturday Night Live” 30 years after his first appearance on the show earlier this month.
Describing the opportunity as “one of the most amazing experiences of my career,” the actor said he didn’t have time to be nervous in spite of the hectic backstage atmosphere.
“It was one of the most amazing experiences of my career,” he said.