Have Ed Sheeran and Cherry Seaborn jumped on pop culture baby name trend?

Ed Sheeran has shared news of the birth of his daughter on Instagram in a post that also announced the name they’ve chosen.

Sheeran has kept his wife’s pregnancy under wraps, but said of Cherry Seaborn: “Both mum and baby are doing amazing.”

The pair have chosen to call their new arrival Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran, which could well be a nod to the pop superstar’s favourite Philip Pullman book series, His Dark Materials.

Sheeran wouldn’t be the first new parent to jump on the baby name trend of using pop culture references to name his baby.

The top 100 baby names of the year were released last week with popular culture playing a big role in the choices of new parents.

While Lyra didn’t make the list, Dua - thanks to singer, Dua Lipa, and Kylo, because of Star Wars’ Kylo Ren, both ranked in the top 100.

“Popular culture continues to influence the baby names landscape. Following Dua Lipa’s first UK number one single in 2017, the number of girls named Dua has doubled from 63 to 126 in 2019,” David Corps, Vital Statistics Outputs Branch, explained.

Read more: Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom couldn’t resist this baby name trend

In the Instagram post, Sheeran wrote: “Ello! A quick message from me as I have some personal news that I wanted to share with you... Last week, with the help of an amazing delivery team, Cherry gave birth to our beautiful and healthy daughter - Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran.

“We are completely in love with her. Both mum and baby are doing amazing and we are on cloud nine over here. We hope that you can respect our privacy at this time. Lots of love and I’ll see you when it’s time to come back, Ed x”

Back in 2015, Sheeran described His Dark Materials as “the best books I’ve ever read” in a Twitter post, which may indicate where the unusual name originated from.

The award-winning adventure novels follows two lead characters, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as they travel through parallel universes.

The provenance of the middle name, Antarctica, is less clear, but one eagle-eyed fan did point out that Sheeran was in Antarctica nine months ago.

Read more: These are the baby names parents are most likely to regret

The former school friends got married at a low-key ceremony at his estate in Framlingham, Suffolk, in 2018 and while he never officially announced Seaborn’s pregnancy, he did announce he was taking a break in December 2019.

In the post, Sheeran said: “I’ve been a bit non-stop since 2017 so I’m just gonna take a breather to travel, write and read. I’ll be off social media until it’s time to come back again.”

The only post he has written in 2020 has been to announce the birth of his baby, but the singer still signed off saying “see you when it’s time to come back”, suggesting his hiatus isn’t over just yet.