Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes Named Their Baby After 15th-Century Ship
Accented lamb-man Ryan Gosling and his beautiful B-movie star lover Eva Mendes have christened their infant daughter Esmeralda Amada, which sounds uncannily like a lost ship in Christopher Columbus' fleet. "The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, and the Esmeralda Amada were the ships that carried Columbus here so he could rape the land, kill the Natives and clear the way for modern peoples to build Starbucks that serve alcohol," I vaguely remember my second-grade teacher saying.
People give Ryan Gosling way too much credit. Ryan Gosling is not cool. Ryan Gosling was in the fucking Mickey Mouse club! With Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake! When he was 19, Ryan Gosling thought he was Marlon Brando and started speaking in Brando's accent. Ryan Gosling wears a facade of cool, the pretentious hipster he is, but you remove the mask and the tattoos and Ryan Gosling is no better than Justin Timberlake. He is just more skilled at keeping his mouth shut, and wears nicer clothes.
Therefore I am not surprised he has birthed a baby named Esmeralda Amada with Eva Mendes, who was great in A Night at the Roxbury. Esmeralda Amada is a name rife with fantasy, just like Gosling and Mendes themselves. Esmeralda, meaning "emerald," is perhaps most famously known as the gypsy girl-love interest of Quasimodo in Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, who seduces men with her dance moves (shades of Mickey Mouse Club, there). Amada is a sheet-metal manufacturing plant in California. Together the names sound mysterious, just like baby Mendes-Gosling's parents. In reality, they are not.
With a first name as cumbersome as Esmeralda, nickname possibilities are multitudinous. Esme, originally a man's name and, unfortunately, the subject of a J.D. Salinger story, is the obvious first contender. Or maybe just combine both names. Esmeraldamada. Beautiful.
Leah Finnegan is Gawker's baby name critic.
[Photo via Getty]