Liam Payne once admitted he went through an “internal battle” while trying to choose a name for his son Bear, who he shared with his ex-girlfriend Cheryl.
Liam, who sadly died aged 31 last month, and Cheryl welcomed their son in 2017 and while they split a year later, the pair remained friends. They agreed to keep Bear out of the limelight, but have previously explained how they decided on his distinctive moniker.
During an appearance on the Late Late Show with James Corden in 2017, Liam confirmed the inspiration behind his son’s unique name. The One Direction singer revealed that “one of the midwives said it” and remembered his newborn making noises while in hospital.
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A doctor reassured him there was “nothing wrong” but Bear just liked to “make a lot of noise”. Liam added: “And that’s carried on ever since, so he just became Bear.”
Earlier that year, Liam told Total Access: “It was like an internal battle. I wanted a more traditional name and [Cheryl] wanted a name that was more unusual. And the reason she chose Bear in the end was because Bear is a name that when you leave a room, you won’t forget. And I like that.”
Cheryl also revealed on RuPaul’s What’s The Tee podcast back in 2019 that she didn’t have a name picked out right after Bear was born. She recalled how a midwife started calling her newborn ‘Bear’.
“When I was in the hospital, he used to make these noises. We had specialists coming in to see what was going on with his breathing like … quite cute but, yeah, worrisome. Nothing wrong [though], just him. The midwife would come in every day and go, ‘How’s the little bear? ‘ […] I didn’t have the name prior…” Cheryl explained.
She added: “I couldn’t get the nickname Bear out of my mind. We toyed with other one but I didn’t want him to be the third such and such in his class. I wanted him to have a unique name.”
Both Liam and Cheryl have expressed their desire to keep Bear out of the spotlight. Last year, Cheryl told British Vogue that she wants her son to have “a normal childhood.”
She said: “I don’t want people recognizing him on the street. But he’s twigged that I’m famous. The other day he said, ‘How lucky am I to have famous parents?’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He goes, ‘Yeah. But it’s pretty cool’.”
In 2021, Liam told the Diary Of A CEO podcast: “Obviously, we protected his identity to start off with and that’s not being pretentious or anything other than the fact that I want to give him a chance to be Bear first before he has to be, ‘Oh, your mum and dad are so and so,’ y’know. And I made my choice to be where I was at 14 [or] 15, so I figure he can make his own choice then too.”
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