Scarlett Johansson reveals why she and SNL star Colin Jost kept son Cosmo's name private

Scarlett Johansson has explained why she and Saturday Night Live star Colin Jost kept the name of their son, Cosmo, private in the early months after his birth.

Speaking during a recent appearance on Today with Jenna Bush Hager, Johansson said the decision came down to avoiding real‑time reactions to a choice they already loved. 

“I didn’t want any of the weird face,” she said, describing how people sometimes respond when they hear an unexpected baby name. 

“You know when you tell somebody, and they go like this, ‘Oh, that’s different.’”

She mimed a surprised expression and added, 

“What’s happening there? I don’t like it.”

Johansson and Jost welcomed Cosmo in 2021, several years into a relationship that has included multiple red‑carpet appearances, awards‑show milestones, and Jost’s continued run at SNL.

Johansson, who is also mother to daughter Rose, 11, from her previous marriage to Romain Dauriac, said she felt particularly protective of her choices while pregnant. She told Bush Hager,

“If you’re carrying, you’re like, ‘I’m not here for it,’ I don’t want any of your opinions.”

The couple, therefore, chose not to share the name Cosmo widely until after they had settled in with their son and felt ready for outside reactions.

Saturday Night Live and family life with Colin Jost

Johansson framed the decision around emotional bandwidth during pregnancy. For her, even subtle feedback could feel like a judgment.

She described those early months as a time when she did not want to see or hear anything that might make her second‑guess the name she and Jost had already chosen.

Keeping Cosmo’s name private allowed them to avoid the moment when someone might say “Oh, that’s different” and force them into a conversation about why the name mattered to them.

When the actress began sharing the name with her family, reactions varied. She said her mother, Melanie Sloan, was immediately on board. Johansson recalled,

“My mom loved it, which was like, ‘phew.’ She was like, ‘Oh my third-grade crush was named Cosmo.’ It had a great meaning for her.”

That response reassured Johansson that the name resonated within her closest circle.

Colin Jost’s mother, Kerry Kelly, took a different view at first. Johansson said that a few days after hearing the name, Jost’s mother came back with an alternative. She said,

“A few days after she goes, ‘Cosimo is a name I can find. That’s a recognizable name. I was like, ‘We’re not just gonna insert an ‘I,’ this is what it is.’”

The exchange illustrated the kind of back‑and‑forth Johansson had wanted to avoid before Cosmo was born, reinforcing her choice to keep the name private until the couple felt ready to stand firm.

Johansson and Jost have spoken previously about small domestic debates, including their roles in reading to their children at bedtime.

During another stint guest‑hosting a Today spinoff segment with Jenna Bush Hager, Johansson and Jost joked about who is the better bedtime storyteller. 

“I would say me,” Jost quipped, adding a stereotypical line about performers: 

“You know how actors sometimes do a whole acting thing, and they tend to sort of make it all about them? I’m not naming names, but just actors in general.”

He said he preferred to “let the literature shine.” Johansson countered that their children “want the mama’s touch” and concluded, “I’m winning.”

Those stories sit alongside the more recent explanation of how they tried to protect Cosmo’s name choice from outside critique.

With Cosmo now four and Rose entering adolescence, Johansson’s comments on Today offered one of the clearest explanations yet of how she and the Saturday Night Live star think about that boundary.

For them, the name Cosmo was “written in the stars,” as some coverage has phrased it, but not open for debate.

When relatives and the wider world finally did hear it, Johansson and Jost were ready to respond, whether that meant smiling at a story about a third‑grade crush named Cosmo or politely declining to turn “Cosmo” into “Cosimo.”

Stay tuned for more updates.