Fans React to Hilarie Burton and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Peculiar Baby Name

Hilarie Burton took to Instagram on Tuesday to announce her baby daughter’s name and fans had mixed reactions to it, with many suggesting it was just a little unconventional.

Burton posted a photo collage of her baby on Instagram, including one of her husband, Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan, kissing her gently on the forehead. Her caption consisted of a long story about her years of miscarriages and her bitterness at the coverage of celebrity pregnancies. However, at the very bottom was the detail fans were caught off guard by.

“Please meet George Virginia Morgan,” Burton wrote. “She was born February 16th. Her daddy delivered her. We love her very much.”

Of course, the comment section filled up with congratulations and outpourings of support for Burton’s struggles with fertility. Many people wrote long, heartfelt posts about their own difficulty conceiving, and thanked Burton for being honest and talking about the little-addressed issue. However, the post also sparked a lot of puzzlement, as fans wondered why Burton had chosen a traditionally masculine name for her infant daughter.

“Ugh why name HER George?” one person asked bluntly. “How about Georgia?”

“George?” wondered another. “Sometimes I have to wonder about celebrities and their choices of names for their little bundles of joy. How in the world could you name a baby girl George? For a middle name, maybe, but for a first name? sorry, I think this is very weird.”

Even the context of Burton’s confessional post about body positivity and self-doubt didn’t stop commenters from fixating on the name choice.

“All this waiting and you name HER George? FFS,” wrote a follower.

Burton chose not to respond to the detractors, nor did Morgan. The couple has an older son, Augustus, who is 8 years old. They’re celebrating their growing family as Morgan celebrates the ongoing success of his Walking Dead role. Below is Burton’s full letter.

“As some of you know, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is off in Europe getting ready to do some big conventions. And he’s self aware enough to know his track record for ‘spilling the beans’ isn’t so great (bless his heart!). So before he starts tripping up in an attempt to maintain our privacy, he asked that I go ahead and post something about our little girl’s birth.”

“But before I do that, there’s something I really want to say to all the women out there who are trying…..”

“It took a long time for Jeffrey and I to have this baby. The first time I got pregnant, it took a year and a half. I surprised him on Christmas with baby Seahawk booties. We cried. We celebrated. We picked out names. And we lost that baby.”

“More losses followed, and as so many couples know, it was heartbreaking. It still is heartbreaking.”

“And every morning of the five years it took us, I’d open my computer at the kitchen table and see the news and I’d grow bitter over the endless parade of celebrities showing off their bumps and babies. I’d weep out of jealousy for how easy it was for them. Didn’t they know something could go wrong? Didn’t they know that there were other women out there struggling? It pained me to see the corporate sponsored baby showers and magazine covers capitalizing on this human miracle that wasn’t happening for us.”

“So when this pregnancy started, we were cautious. I didn’t want to celebrate for fear of jinxing it. I didn’t want a baby shower. I checked her heartbeat every day, up until the day she was born. And now that she is here, I just stare at her in wonder all day. I see her in her daddy’s arms and I don’t take any of it for granted. She screams bloody murder and I smile because she is so wildly alive.”

“So now that folks know she’s here, I don’t want her birth to cause any other woman to weep at her kitchen table. If anything, my wish is that she would restore hope for others. Fertility is a fickle thing. And for the other couples out there who have had dark days, we want to introduce our miracle baby to you and send you our love and support in finding yours.”

“Please meet George Virginia Morgan. She was born February 16th. Her daddy delivered her. We love her very much.”