Blake Lively ‘Hated’ Her Unique Middle Name Until Ryan Reynolds Changed Her Mind

Ryan Reynolds may have just learned Blake Lively’s real last name, but he’s the reason she learned to embrace another moniker.

During a recent press junket interview to promote her new movie, It Ends With Us, Lively’s costar
Isabela Ferrer—who plays a younger version of Lively’s Lily Bloom in the film—had a hard time guessing the actor’s middle name. “I don’t talk about it much,” Lively admitted.

“I know your proper last name is Brown and your mom’s last name is Lively,” Ferrer said while wracking her brain for the correct answer, which Lively eventually revealed is “Ellender.”

“It’s not a name. My mom, I think, made it up by accident,” Lively said throughout the interview. “It’s not a word, it doesn’t exist.” Before you ask, it’s pronounced Ellen-der, not Ellen-door. “I’m not Dumbledore, it’s Ellender,” the 36-year-old confirmed, joking that the famous Harry Potter wizard’s name is “probably a better option.”

“I always like was really confused by it, so I always hated it,” Lively said of her middle name before explaining how Reynolds changed her mind. “But my husband loved it, which made me like it more. And he’s like, ‘It sounds like lavender.’ And I was like, ‘Ooh.'”

Reynolds previously joked that he “just found out” his wife’s last name when she announced her new haircare line, Blake Brown, on July 31. “I’m obscenely proud of this woman,” the Deadpool & Wolverine star also wrote in an Instagram Story, per E! News. “The result is exactly what you’d expect of a hyper-obsessive, detail addicted, uncompromisingly quality control genius.”

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have been married since 2012 and share four children: James, Inez, Betty, and Olin. While their three eldest daughters’ names were featured in godmother Taylor Swift’s song “Betty” in 2020, their baby boy’s name was recently revealed during a speech at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere on July 22.

“I want to start by saying thank you to my wife Blake, who is here,” Reynolds said, per Page Six. “I want to thank my kids, James, Inez, Betty, Olin, who are here. I hope that, if I’m lucky, this moment will be the most traumatic thing—that is, the contents of this movie—that happens in your wondrous life.”