Macaulay Culkin is a Dad! Baby's name is a touching tribute

The former child start named his firstborn after his late sister.

Macaulay Culkin, everyone's favorite 90s child star and eccentric Hollywood hipster, welcomed his firstborn last week with former Disney star Brenda Song. On Monday, April 5 he and Brenda song welcomed a healthy baby boy in Los Angeles, and named him Dakota Song Culkin in honor of Macaulay's late sister who was killed in 2008 after being struck by a car.

Macaulay Culkin, 40, and Brenda Song, 33

Macaulay's sister, Dakota, died at 29-years-old in a tragic Los Angeles car accident when she stepped off a curb while walking on the west side of Los Angeles at night. She was taken to UCLA Hospital where she died shortly after of massive head injuries, leaving what Macaulay would later refer to as an "absolutely heartbroken" chapter of his life.

Dakota was a year older than Macaulay, and one of the family's seven children.

""We're overjoyed," Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song said in a brief statement they released about the arrival of their first child. Esquire was the first to report the baby news, which flooded 90s movies and early 2000s television fans into a frenzy of excitement.

Culkin and Song apparently met four years ago on the set of Changeland in Thailand and were first romantically connected when they were spotted out together in July 2017. In a sea of Hollywood exposure, the couple managed to keep their budding romance mostly out of the spotlight, though they've occasionally popped up on each other's social media accounts over the last two years. Culkin first mentioned the idea of starting a family with Song back in 2018. "This one's a good one," he said on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. "So I'm probably going to put some babies in her in a little bit. I mean, we've definitely been practicing."

"I could sit here and write endlessly about how wonderful, kind, loving, genuine, loyal, honest, brilliant and hilarious you are, and how grateful I am that I get to share and do this life thing with you," Brenda Song wrote in an August 2020 Instagram post. "But firstly, that would take me an eternity and secondly, you won't even see this because you don't ever use instagram. Hahaha. My unicorn that I never thought could exist, I am luckiest person in the world because I am loved by you."

The name Dakota peaked in popularity for baby boys in the 1990s across the United States, and was a top 100 most popular baby boy name from 1993 to 2001, reaching a peak of 56 in 1995. The name then picked up steam for baby girls, and as of 2016 was the 233rd most common American girl name while it slipped to 344th for boys.

"With notable stars like Macaulay and Brenda bringing Dakota back en vogue for baby boys, I think we'll see the name shift back into favor for little boys and gender-neutral scenarios," says baby name trends expert Jeannine Corlie. "I think the general trend in Los Angeles and the Hollywood industry for many years was to give baby girls masculine names. Remember we were seeing a lot of baby girls getting names like James, Cameron, Avery, Drew, Hayden, and Harper? Those will continue to be on trend, but I think we're edging back in the reverse direction a little with those names being reclaimed as boys or just open to anyone and everyone."

Are you a Macaulay Culkin or Brenda Song fan? We'd love to hear your thoughts on the touching baby name the new parents chose for their firstborn.