Darren Criss and his wife Mia Swier have recently welcomed their second child together, but some people are questioning the child’s name.
The Glee actor recently took to Instagram to share a photo of his son, who was born on June 3. “M & D just delivered their follow-up single,” the post’s caption read. “Brother László Criss.”
“… and yes his first name is Brother,” the actor added. The couple are also parents to a two-year-old daughter named Bluesy Belle.
Shortly after Brother’s birth was announced, people were quick to take to the comments to question where the unique name came from.
“If you need to say ‘yes his name really is…’, chances are you picked a bad name,” one comment read.
Another commenter agreed, writing: “If you have to explain their name is ‘Brother’ then a different name should be picked.”
Some commenters even gave examples of instances in which the name would be used in everyday life.
“The future girlfriend/boyfriend is gonna be calling him brother,” one person wrote alongside a laughing emoji in the comments.
“‘Do you take Brother to be your lawfully wedded husband?’” another instance read.
Someone else asked if there was another possible inspiration behind both baby names. “Did you name your kids after The Blues Brothers just in a super literal way?”
Criss has previously spoken about the inspiration behind Bluesy’s name during an appearance on The View in 2022. “Her parents are musicians,” he said, “but she’s named after her grandfather’s eyes. My father had very blue eyes.”
The Broadway actor’s new addition comes after he revealed recently in an interview with The Independent that he had been “s*** on” and misquoted when playing queer characters as a straight man.
He said that he has now become very cautious speaking to the media about the topic because he was misquoted as saying he would never play an LGBTQ+ character again.
“I was like: ‘I never said this,’” Criss said, mentioning that he has turned down “queer roles” after thinking he couldn’t add much to the characters.
“There are so many performances that are either straight roles given by queer actors or queer roles that are done by straight actors that are so beloved, that we just don’t talk about those,” he said.
“But if they’re done poorly, we get up in arms and we blame it on the fact that this person isn’t queer, this person isn’t straight, as opposed to maybe they just weren’t the right person for the job?”
The actor explained that this typically happens when an actor reaches a certain level of fame and begins to be held to a “double standard” where their personal lives begin to affect the way their performances are viewed.
