John Legend reveals the special meaning behind newborn Esti’s name

‘It turns out, my great-grandmother was named Esther,’ the singer says

John Legend has revealed the special meaning behind the name of his and Chrissy Teigen’s newborn, Esti.

The singer opened up about his family and the significance of his daughter’s name during a recent interview with E! News. Legend first shared the news that the baby had been born on 13 January while performing at a private concert.

Speaking to E!, he acknowledged that although Teigen picked their daughter’s name, it still had a meaningful connection one of his relatives.

“It turns out, my great-grandmother was named Esther,” he said. “It wasn’t intentionally after someone.”

The “All of Me” singer noted that when his spouse first brought up Esti as an “idea” for a baby name, he mentioned his great-grandmother’s name to her.

In addition to his daughter’s first name, Legend also shared that her middle name is tied to another member of his family.

“We wanted to already name her middle name Maxine after my grandmother, whose middle name was Maxine,” he said. “So, it’s a lot of my family in the name.”

On 19 January, Teigen took to Instagram to share her first photo of her child.

“She’s here! Esti Maxine Stephens - the house is bustling and our family could not be happier,” the model wrote in the caption. “Daddy sheds nightly tears of joy seeing Luna and Miles so full of love, and I am learning you still need diapers with a C-section!?”

“We are in bliss,” she added. “Thank you for all the love and well wishes - we feel it all!”

Throughout the last few months, the model has documented her pregnancy journey on Instagram. In December last year, she sent a message to her followers wondering when she will give birth after she and Legend announced they were expecting in August 2022. She posted a photo of her showing off her baby bump as she was wearing a bikini.

“‘Omg I feel like she’s been pregnant foreverrrrrr,’” the Lip Sync Battle star wrote in the caption, mimicking some of the comments she’s received on her posts. “How do you think I feel thank u”.

Teigen and Legend’s pregnancy announcement came two years after they revealed that their son, Jack, had died at 20 weeks as a result of a miscarriage. In September 2022, she shared that it took her “over a year” to realise that she actually had an abortion and not a miscarriage.

“When I was pregnant with Jack, John and I had to make a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions. It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive, and that I wouldn’t either without any medical intervention,” the model explained, while speaking at social impact agency Propper Daley’s “A Day of Unreasonable Conversation” summit.

“Let’s just call it what it was: It was an abortion,” she added. “An abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance. And to be honest, I never, ever put that together until, actually, a few months ago.”

The cookbook author also said that she came to this realisation after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June and that Legend was the one who said that they’d had an abortion.