Blue Ivy was actually going to be named something completely different. “It was supposed to be Brooklyn,” Jay-Z told CBS Mornings in October, a possible reference to the rapper’s birthplace. But the nickname he and Beyoncé had for the tiny fetus they saw on the screen during checkups ended up becoming more than that. “We was calling her Blueberry. Like, ‘Look at the little blueberry.’ You know, it was like a nickname,” he explained. “It just was natural.”
The more they visited their blueberry, the more it stuck. “We just took the ‘berry’ off of it and called her Blue,” he said. The inspiration behind the second half of his daughter’s name is still unclear, though. A popular theory suggests it derives from the Roman numeral IV, as the number four seemingly has a special meaning for them. Beyoncé was born on September 4, while Jay-Z was born on December 4. Similarly, the couple tied the knot on April 4, 2008.
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They even had IV tattooed on their ring finger (though Beyoncé has since altered hers to look more like a 4) and, in June 2011, Beyoncé released the album “4.” In fact, Jay-Z’s song “Glory” suggests Beyoncé fell pregnant during a trip to France to shoot the album’s cover, potentially heightening the significance carried by the number. “You was made in Paris / And Mama woke up the next day and shot her album package,” the lyrics read.
