Thomas Rhett Explains the Meaning Behind Son Brave Elijah’s Name

Thomas Rhett and his wife Lauren recently welcomed their fifth child, and first son. Choosing his name wasn’t easy. In fact, Rhett admits they were still deciding on a middle name when they arrived at the hospital. Eventually, their baby boy’s full name, Brave Elijah, came to them in an unexpected spark of inspiration and quickly became deeply meaningful for the couple.

Back in January 2025, the couple had planned to pack up their family and move to Uganda for a year, and they were also considering adopting another child. However, over Father’s Day weekend that year, they received a positive pregnancy test, and suddenly all of their plans changed. Rhett recently co-hosted a weekend of Country Countdown U.S.A. with Lon Helton, where he reflected on the unexpected news and shared the story behind the name Brave Elijah.

He explains they had been procrastinating on choosing what to call their first baby boy. Then the idea for Brave came to Rhett while enjoying a glass of wine.

“The name of the wine was Mount Brave. So I asked Lauren about the name Brave for a boy. We loved what that word meant for a boy or girl,” he revealed.

Once they agreed on the first name, the next big decision was the middle name. Again, Rhett happened to find himself come across a name that struck a chord with him and felt just right as it held a deep connection to something the couple values highly in their life: faith.

“We were in the hospital, they gave us the birth certificate, and we still didn’t have a middle name.  I was reading Elijah’s story in the Bible, and he led an incredible life. So we settled on Brave Elijah,” Rhett told Helton.

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Brave is the couple’s fifth child, joining their four daughters:  Willa Gray (10), Ada James (8), Lennon Love (6), and Lillie Carolina (4). The “After All The Bars Are Closed” singer says they were trying to get pregnant one more time, but he never imagined that after four girls in their home, he would finally get a son. This time, the couple chose not to find out the baby’s gender until birth, and when their child was born in February, he was truly surprised.

“It’s surreal. I thought after our 4th girl, it wasn’t in the cards for me to have a boy,” he admitted. “When we were in the hospital, I thought it was gonna be another girl. Having that surprise was one of the coolest moments in my life. He’s a big baby, he was ten pounds, my wife is a super-hero.”

Rhett also stated that being a family of seven has “been a blast” and jokingly added that they are lucky to have so many “built in big sister babysitters.”

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When Helton asked if they are officially done having children now, Rhett responded that five kids has always been Lauren’s “magic number” so they don’t currently don’t have plans to add any more to the bunch.

 “I don’t think we’re gonna have any more kids.  But it was the coolest thing in the world not to know if it was a boy or girl. I have never been more surprised. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but so worth it.”

For now, Thomas Rhett has been finding a balance of soaking up the newborn snuggles at home and spending time at the studio to work on his next record. He shared his hopes to put out a song or two sometime between April and May and then release an entire album by the end of the year.

“I’ve been writing for a year and a half for this project. I feel the word on this next project is timeless. I’m thinking on making a short record, only ten songs, and let’s go with that,” he shared.

Plus, he’s set to embark on THE SOUNDTRACK TO LIFE TOUR, kicking off July 9 in Nashville, TN.