Made In Chelsea star Ollie Locke and his husband Gareth have spoken out about the meaning behind their newborn twins’ unusual names.
The happy couple became parents to twins last month, who were born via a surrogate, and have named their son and daughter Apollo Magnus Obi and Cosima Emily Bex.
In a new interview with Hello! magazine, Gareth explained that he’d “always wanted to have a son and call him Apollo”, while the baby’s middle name, Magnus, is the male form of Maggie, Gareth’s mum’s nickname.
Ollie also revealed that his daughter’s name comes from the Greek for “chaos and beauty”, joking: “She’s already living up to that.”
Emily and Bex, meanwhile, are a nod to Ollie’s late friend, the YouTube creator Emily Hartridge, and the couple’s surrogate, Bex Ward.
“We hadn’t told Bex we were naming the baby after her, so Ollie took her to the registry office after they were born and surprised her,” Gareth shared.
Ollie and Gareth announced their engagement in 2018, and tied the knot in 2020.
Before getting married, both Ollie and Gareth already had the surname Locke, and since the wedding, now officially use the double-barrelled name Locke-Locke.
In recent years, they’ve been charting their fertility journey on social media, which is how they came into contact with Bex, who volunteered to be their surrogate after seeing their story online.
Bex gave birth on 8 July, seven weeks before the twins’ due date.
Ollie told Hello!: “Our little monkeys decided to be really strong. They wanted to come out early because they felt they were ready, and they were absolutely amazing.
“They needed a bit of help, but not as much as a lot of premature babies.”
Earlier this year, the former Celebrity Big Brother housemate admitted that he and his husband faced some difficulty when it came to baby names.
Speaking on the Twinning It podcast, Ollie said: “We have both names and goodness me that’s a struggle. We tell everyone who we meet what our baby names are.
“One was [inspired by] a girl I knew years ago, a beautiful girl. We came up with a name similar and I told Binky [Felstead, also of Made In Chelsea fame] who told her best friend who had a baby called that as well who went mental at me so we’ve changed it somewhat.
“It’s a very similar name but not the same name. We’re not the kind of people who want normal names.”
Read Ollie and Gareth’s interview with Hello! magazine here.