A lot of thought went into their baby boy’s name! Peta Murgatroyd revealed why she and fiancé Maksim Chmerkovskiy named their son Shai Aleksander in a post on her blog, All Things Fam & Glam, on Friday, February 17.
The Australian dancer, 30, explained that she and Chmerkovskiy, 37, initially struggled to find the perfect moniker. “First of all, naming a baby — who will one day be an adult out in the world — is hard,” she wrote. “It took months and months to find a name that both Maks and I loved and kind of embodied what he means to us. We knew that we wanted a shorter name that wasn’t super complicated because ‘Chmerkovskiy’ is kind of a mouthful and he’ll always have to spell it out for people.”
The Dancing With the Stars pros, who got engaged in December 2015, finally settled on Shai, which is pronounced “shy” and means “gift” in Hebrew, according to Murgatroyd. “Honestly, it’s a perfect fit because from the very beginning, we felt like this little life we made was the most precious gift God could grant us,” she wrote.
The blonde beauty also dished on their son’s middle name, which honors someone special. “Shai’s middle name, Aleksander, was all Maks,” Murgatroyd wrote. “Maks didn’t grow up with a middle name, but I definitely wanted Shai to have one. So we gave him his middle name after Maks’ dad, Aleksandr (spelled a little differently to honor Shai’s heritage but also make it unique to him). It was a really special moment for Maks to have his dad be a part of something we created.”
Murgatroyd and Chmerkovskiy recently decided that after a month and a half of keeping their son out of the spotlight, they’re ready to show him off. Shai even made his TV debut on Good Morning America Friday, February 17. “We’ve tried to keep Shai for ourselves, like our little secret that only we get to enjoy — but babies aren’t secrets and keeping him hidden away forever isn’t realistic and healthy,” she wrote. “Now, after taking as much time as we could to enjoy these precious first moments of his life, we’re finally ready to share Shai with the world.”
