Yes, we all know Kate Winslet went the nontraditional route in naming her new son, Bear Blaze Winslet. But now she explains the meaning behind it — and it's all rather sentimental and sweet.
While appearing on Tuesday's "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," the "Divergent" actress talked about her new addition, which she welcomed with husband Ned Rocknroll in December. She said that her older children, Mia and Joe, helped with the big decision of picking out names.
"It was really lovely actually — they were very much included and we settled on Bear quite early on," explained the 38-year-old. "A friend of mine when I was younger was nicknamed Bear and I just had always really loved it. And he was very much a bear. He was everyone's shoulder to cry on. He was a big bear hug. He was a great figure in my life. And I just had always remembered him, so that's where it came from."
As for the middle name Blaze, well, that came from the unusual circumstances in which Winslet met Rocknroll — on his uncle Richard Branson's private island in the Caribbean. While staying on Necker Island in August 2011, a fire broke out in the middle of the night during a lightning storm, and the main house, where they were among the 20 guests, was destroyed. Winslet, who was there with Mia and Joe, was credited for helping to save Branson's then-90-year-old mother from the flames.
"Bear's second name is Blaze because my husband and I met in a house fire," Winslet said. "The house burned down and we survived. But we wanted something of the fire and so Blaze was the name that we came up with."
She also addressed why they gave little Bear Blaze Winslet's her name, not her husband's. That stems from his decision, before he met the Oscar winner, to change his name from the plain Abel Smith to the jazzy Ned Rocknroll.
"People who know Ned know he's very much about irony and living life and having fun, so he changed [his last name] to Rocknroll," Winslet explained, but added, "He did do it before he met me."
While she wouldn't come out and say she disliked her hubby's name change, she hinted that she wouldn't have encouraged him to make the switch. And so they gave Bear her more ordinary last name.
This the first we've really seen of the British actress since she gave birth late last year. After taking time off, she arrived in Los Angeles this week to promote "Divergent," and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday.
[Related: Tune in to the live red carpet premiere for 'Divergent' Tuesday, Mar. 18 at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT]
Looking incredible in her little black dress just three months after Bear's arrival, Winslet was honored at the ceremony by her "Divergent co-stars Shailene Woodley and Mekhi Phifer, and "Titanic's" Kathy Bates. She told the spectators she was shocked by the large turnout so soon after an earthquake hit Los Angeles, adding that it was the first one she experienced.
"It frightened me quite a lot," she said. "I made for a doorframe with my breast pump in hand."
The glamorous life of a Hollywood mom!
