Fans of the late John Lennon had reason to celebrate on Tuesday, September 1, after his son, Sean, announced the birth of his first child, making the Beatles legend a grandfather for the very first time.
“Glad to know the Lennon bloodline will not be ending,” a fan wrote, while another added, “Lennon’s legacy will continue in more than one way.”
The excitement, however, took a sharp turn after the baby’s name was revealed, with some users branding the choice “wacky.”
“Sounds like a super villain name….don’t let him get access to any infinity stones,” a netizen quipped.
Sean Lennon stepped into fatherhood with a distinctive name for his newborn
Sean welcomed Aurelius with his longtime partner, Charlotte Kemp Muhl.
“Created a human bean,” the pair captioned the announcement on social media, which showed them holding their baby.
Sean shared further photos of himself and Muhl, captioning one picture “baby mama,” while Muhl detailed the experience of motherhood in a separate upload.
“The sleep deprivation only adds to the surrealism… Burping technique tips welcome. Been playing him Aphex Twin and Stravinsky.”
A number of the couple’s famous friends were among those to congratulate them.
“Oh, I’m so happy for you both,” wrote Patti Smith.
“Congratulations on your new baby,” Paris Hilton said, while Zak Starkey, the son of Lennon’s Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr, left a message reading, “Amazing.”
Then jokes about the name began circulating among netizens.
“School is going to be hard on him,” one commented.
“I think John II would have been good,” offered another.
The name Aurelius, however, would only sound odd to those with sparse knowledge of the Roman Empire.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the last emperor of the Pax Romana, a period of relative peace and stability in Rome that lasted from 27 B.C. to 180 A.D.
The name, in its most basic sense, is also quite meaningful, as it comes from the Latin for “golden” or “gilded.”
John Lennon’s other son once opened up about the impact his father had on his own plans for a family
Julian Lennon, John’s son by his first wife, Cynthia, revealed in a 2011 interview with Record Collector Magazine that his difficult relationship with the singer discouraged him from having a family.
He said that unlike his father, who welcomed him at 22, he wanted to be mature enough to cope with parenthood.
“He was young and didn’t know what the hell he was doing. That’s the reason why I haven’t had children yet. I didn’t want to do the same thing.”
Julian was five when John left Cynthia for Yoko Ono.
He wasn’t even present during his birth and was away on tour.
Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, initially covered up the fact that John was married with a child to make him more appealing to female fans.
The two reconciled later on in life, but John hurt Julian once again
In an interview shortly before his demise in 1980, John implied that Julian was an unplanned child who “came from a bottle of whiskey.”
“Mum was more about love than Dad,” Julian said in response. “He sang about it, he spoke about it, but never really gave it, at least not to me.”
Julian also said he “inherited aggression” from John, which further made him feel he was not fit to be a father.
Even so, he expressed sympathy for John, acknowledging his own father’s traumatic childhood and separation from his parents.
John Lennon’s complex relationship with his sons reflects his own troubled childhood
Born in Liverpool in 1940 to Julia Stanley and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman, John grew up with a father who was often away at sea, and who later vanished from the family altogether.
By the time John was five, his parents’ marriage had collapsed, with Julia moving in with another man, Bobby Dykins, and becoming pregnant with their first child together.
In a cramped flat where John sometimes shared a bed with his mother and her partner, his aunt Mimi complained to social services that the arrangement was unsuitable.
Julia had to hand John over to Mimi and her husband, George, who raised him at their tidy, book-filled house on Menlove Avenue.
She, however, still had custody rights and would bring John over when she wanted.
For John, though, the arrangement of being passed between adults became troubling.
He went on to address the same in his 1970 song Mother, singing, “Mother, you had me, but I never had you.”
“A magnificent name for a brand new human bean,” a netizen said
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