Ed Sheeran is a dad [1]! The singer and his wife, Cherry Seaborn, welcomed their first child in August, a daughter named Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran. Ed announced Lyra's arrival with a sweet photo on Instagram of teeny tiny socks sitting atop a knit blanket. He said both Cherry and Lyra are doing well and that they're "on cloud nine over here" — aw!
The name Lyra, which has Greek origins [2], has just begun to increase in popularity in the US [3] over the past few years. In 2015, the name snuck into the top 1,000 names [4] of the year for girls, and in 2018, it sat in its highest ranked spot at 680th most popular of the year [5]. However, Ed isn't one who's known to do things because they're cool or trendy — fans are speculating that Ed was inspired to use the name as a fan of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy [6], in which the main character is a young girl named Lyra. In 2015, the singer said on Twitter that the three novels "are the best books I've ever read."
As for Lyra's geographical middle name, Antarctica, it's definitely a unique one we haven't heard used before, but imagine it holds meaning for the couple (or maybe they simply decided it was a seriously cool middle name [8]!). And as her surname doesn't appear to be double-barreled, Lyra also sports Seaborn, her mom's last name, as a second middle name.
Congratulations to Ed and Cherry on the arrival of their daughter — we know they're both superprivate, but we hope to see a glimpse of Lyra soon!
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