Blake Lively has learned to appreciate her middle name.
Speaking to MTV UK to promote her new film It Ends with Us with her costar Isabela Ferrer, Lively, 36, revealed it wasn’t until later in life when she met her husband Ryan Reynolds that she learned to love the moniker her mother gave her.
“Oh my God, you’ve said it before,” Ferrer said in an Instagram clip shared by the music television network, trying her best to think of Lively’s non-traditional middle name.
“Have I? I don’t really talk about it much,” Lively responded.
Seeing her costar struggle to remember, Lively began to give Ferrer clues to help her figure it out: “If you write diary entries [it’s] the first part of my middle name.”
“Ellen? Your middle name is Ellen?” Ferrer asked.
In the 2016 novel of the same name which the film is based on, Lily Bloom (played by both Ferrer and Lively at different periods) often writes to Ellen DeGeneres in her diary entries.
While not 100% correct on the name, Ferrer was on the right path by guessing “half of it.”
Before Lively could give another clue, Ferrer blurted, “Elenor? Elenora?”
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With Ferrer still guessing to no avail, Lively said, “Yeah, kind of, but with a ‘D.’ ”
“It’s not a name. My mom, I think, made it up by accident,” she added after seeing Ferrer still appearing to be confused. “It’s not a word, it doesn’t exist,” Lively assured her.
After incorrectly guessing “Delanor,” Lively finally caved in and told Ferrer that her middle name is “Ellender.”
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But next came how to pronounce it properly — to which Ferrer wrongly compared it to Professor Dumbledore of Harry Potter fame.
“I’m not Dumbledore, it’s Ellender,” Lively said with a laugh. “Though Dumbledore honestly [would] probably [be] a better option.”
Lively admitted that growing up, she was always “confused” by her middle name.
“So, I always hated it,” she said during the interview, pausing to look at the camera and apologize “if there’s any Ellenders watching this.”
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“But my husband loved it, which made me like it more,” Lively said.
According to Lively, Reynolds, 47, thought his wife’s unique name sounded like “lavender.”
An excited Ferrer interjected, agreeing that “it does” sound similar to the plant, adding that the name had a regal ring to it.
“It sounds very elegant and graceful,” Ferrer said, adding that the name sounded “royal” as if she should be called “Lady Ellender III.”
It Ends with Us is in theaters now.
