Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Jack Whitehall and girlfriend Roxy Horner reveal sweet name for baby daughter

Whitehall and his girlfriend, model Roxy Horner, welcomed their first child together in early September

Ellie Muir
Wednesday 20 September 2023 10:52 BST
Comments
Jack Whitehall and Roxy Horner
Jack Whitehall and Roxy Horner (Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

Jack Whitehall and his girlfriend Roxy Horner have introduced their newborn daughter to the world, after keeping her name under wraps for two weeks.

The couple announced the arrival of their newborn baby on 6 September, when Whitehall shared a picture of their newly-formed family of three on Instagram.

“Well this just happened!” Whitehall wrote at the time. “Utterly overwhelming and joyous in ways I couldn’t have even imagined. In awe of my partner @roxyhorner who has been amazing throughout this journey and is going to be the greatest mum ever.”

Whitehall didn’t share the child’s name in the initial announcement, instead joking: “Name wise, after this weekend I think ‘rice, rice, baby’ has a nice ring to it.”

However, on Tuesday (19 September) a spokesperson for Whitehall confirmed that the child had been named Elsie.

They told MailOnline that the new parents took some time deciding on a name but settled on Elsie, which means “pledged to God”.

The Independent has contacted Whitehall’s representative for comment.

The Bad Education actor, 35, explained how “excited” he was to have started a family of his own when they announced Elsie’s arrival earlier this month.

“Having vowed I’d never be that guy I am now 100 per cent going to be the parent that shows everyone endless pictures of their kid,” he joked. “I also wore Skechers to hospital, I think I must accept I am a full blown dad now.”

Sharing the pictures of himself holding his newborn to Twitter/X, Whitehall quipped: “WARNING: This account is now going to feature exclusively dad jokes.”

It seems that Whitehall has been delivering on those dad jokes in his latest social media posts. In one Instagram post, he posted a photo of himself sleeping to depict how fatherhood was going so far.

“Can’t believe I’m only two weeks into this. Also every morning I see these nappies and think did someone sneak in last night and give my daughter five pints of Guinness and a kebab?”

Then, in another post, Whitehall shared a picture of three babygrows, one with the Glastonbury Festival and two with the Arsenal football club logo on them. In another video, he danced to Westlife while holding his daughter to try and get her to stop crying.

The father-of-one captioned his post: “When the only thing to stop her crying is to dance with her to Westlife.”

Meanwhile, Horner, who is a model, posted a series of photos to her Instagram in celebration of Elsie’s arrival, in which she was seen holding her baby on her chest.

“The love of my life,” she wrote.

The pair started dating in 2020, and live together with their dog Coco.

Announcing the news in May, Horner opened up about how having a miscarriage the year before made her “worried” about “telling the world” about her pregnancy.

“We had a miscarriage last year and so there was a part of me that was worried to open up too soon about this baby because I was so worried something would happen again and I didn’t want to have to kind of tell the world,” she told Hello! in May.

“I think because we did go through that miscarriage you realise how fragile the baby is, and just how common actually a miscarriage is, and that so many women go through it – I had no idea how common it actually was.”

She added: “It just makes this feel extra special and you’re more grateful that everything’s fine.”

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in