I have this party trick I do: Because I’m a parenting editor who spends a lot of time covering baby name trends, when friends and family tell me they know someone who’s expecting, I try to guess the baby name. Give me a little info about the parents’ vibe, let me crunch the numbers, and I’ll come up with a name I think will be spot on.
How many times have I been right? Well, let’s just say if I had a nickel for every time I was correct, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but also sort of amazing that I’d have any nickels at all. Most of the time, I get, “Oh, that name was on the list, but it didn’t make the final cut.” Those two times I hit the nail on the head, though, my audience was astounded and thought I was the most perceptive person alive.
So this time, I’m increasing the difficulty level. I’m going to try and predict the baby name of a celebrity I’ve never met: Anne Hathaway, who’s expecting her third child at the end of this month. If I pull this off, I’ll wear the baby-name-guessing crown for all time. We have no friends or connections in common that can give me inside info. All I know about her is what’s publicly available. I have seen her in four new movies in 2026—The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey, The End of Oak Street, and Mother Mary—and it’ll be a fifth if I can get around to seeing Verity, which is on the to-watch list. Does that make her friends and family? I’ve seen her more this year than some of my actual cousins.
When I analyzed what I know about her from the press, these names emerged as my best guesses.
James/Jamie
Anne Hathaway already has two kids with husband Adam Schulman: Jonathan Rosebanks Schulman and Jack Schulman. Clearly the J-names run strong in the family, and James would fit in perfectly.
Jonathan and Jack are also classic names that appear in the Top 100 on this year’s list of the most popular baby names put out by the Social Security Administration (SSA). Currently, Jack is No. 15 on the list, and Jonathan is No. 89. Both names also have a good track record, appearing in the Top 100 every year this century, though the popularity of Jack has risen in the last decade while Jonathan has fallen. James is right there with those other names. It’s even a little bit more popular than the other two, currently sitting at No. 6 on the list, and it’s been a Top 10 name for boys every year since 2014.
James can’t claim to be a unisex name yet—it doesn’t currently rank on the Top 1,000 names for girls. But we do know of girls named James: Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds named their daughter James after Ryan’s late father.
That does seem to be a little bit out of the box for Hathaway, though. Jamie, on the other hand, is on the SSA list for girls—albeit way down at No. 858. Then again, recently we’ve seen a rise in families taking a name that’s traditionally a boy’s name, giving it the -ie ending, and bestowing it upon a girl: names like Stevie, Andie (a Devil Wears Prada fan fave), and Frankie are all trending up. Jamie could be next. Hathaway’s father’s name is Gerald, so Gerri could also be a possibility.
Evelyn/Evan
When it analyzed the baby-name trends among its users this year, BabyCenter came up with an interesting conclusion: While names that started with ‘J’ were trendy for boys, names that started with ‘E’ were trending for girls. “Names beginning with the letter ‘E’ make up 15% of the top 100 girl names,” the site reports. “For boys, 14% of the top 100 names start with ‘J.’ These are the highest concentrations of any first initial letter in their respective charts.”
One of BabyCenter’s highest-ranking ‘E’ names? Evelyn, which climbed five spots to be the No. 9 name on the site. Other fast-climbers on the site include Esme (up 222 spots), Elaine (up 143 spots), Elodie (up 87 spots), Evangeline (up 50 spots), and Elsie (up 23 spots). Evelyn is, like Jack and Jonathan, another classic, timeless name that’s been sitting in the upper reaches on the SSA chart. It’s currently No. 8, and it’s been a Top 10 name since 2017.
Evan isn’t exactly the boy equivalent of Evelyn, and it’s been falling in popularity throughout the century. But, at No. 153 on the SSA list, it hits that sweet spot of not-too-trendy, not-too-obscure.
Helen/Homer
Let’s be clear: Greek god and goddess names have been on the rise since before the release of this year’s The Odyssey. The name Athena, for example, was No. 363 in 2010, and almost cracked the Top 100 last year, coming in at 109. But with the movie being such a cultural phenomenon, these ancient names are getting even bigger. BabyCenter saw a 249-place jump in the name Perseus and a 307-place jump in the name Iris. And the baby-naming site Nameberry also predicts a rise in Odyssey names, saying that the epic is “fueling the next mythology name wave,” and that “parents are going beyond Athena and Apollo.”
In The Odyssey, Hathaway plays Penelope (No. 22 on the SSA list), which itself is a wonderful name with great options for nicknames, like Poppy or Penny. But it seems almost self-serving to name a baby after a character you’ve played.
Instead, Nameberry lists Helen and Homer as two of those next-level Greek myth-inspired names parents are reaching for now. Helen, especially, has that classic-name feel that fits in with Hathaway’s other kids, and right now it’s still bubbling under the radar at No. 462. Homer, I admit, is more of a stretch—it’s hard for Millennials to get over the association with Homer Simpson—and it’s not even on the SSA Top 1,000. But if she does go for that name, she can own it, which can’t really be said of Jonathan and Jack.
How do you think my guesses are? Do you have predictions of your own? Let me know in the comments.
