When it came time to name her baby daughter, Olivia Munn had the perfect moniker — until she learned that all was not as it seemed.
While appearing on the Late Night with Seth Meyers show on Monday, May 12, the Your Friends and Neighbors star, 44, was asked about how she named her 7-month-old daughter Méi June. Munn, who shares her daughter and son Malcolm Hiệp, 3, with husband John Mulaney, 42, began by saying that initially, she thought she was naming her daughter after her mom.
“Yeah, I did. Kind of. Well, I thought I did. So my daughter’s name is Méi. M-e-i with an accent over the e, which means ‘plum’ in Chinese,” Munn explained. “And we were thinking about what the middle name should be.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Related: Olivia Munn and John Mulaney Try to ‘Steal Little Moments’ Every Day to Connect While Juggling Their 2 Kids (Exclusive)
“And one day we were driving, and my mom just says out of nowhere, ‘You know, people call me June.’ My mom’s name is Dung. It’s spelling D-u-n-g. And so, she said, ‘You know, people call me June,’ ” said the mom of two.
Although she’d never heard that nickname for her mom before, Munn went along with it. Later, her comedian husband Mulaney suggested that it might be a cute middle name for their daughter.
“So then later, John’s saying, ‘You know, that would be such a pretty name and such a great way to honor your mother. So why don’t we name her Méi June,'” she remembered.
“I thought that’s a great idea. So then after we have the baby, we send a text to the family and be like, ‘She’s here! Méi June Mulaney, and she’s named after Mom. And I guess people call Mom June. And we’re so excited,'” Munn said.
“And then an hour later, my mom comes to the hospital and she’s holding the baby. And I realized she didn’t say anything about the name yet. So I said, ‘Mom! What do you think about her name?’ And she goes, ‘It’s okay.'”
Munn explained that she was so upset after her mom wasn’t excited about the name, and told her that she had considered naming her daughter after her grandmother, Estelle. When her mom heard that, she told Munn to change the name.
“Why was she backing off June?” asked Meyers.
“And then she says, ‘Why don’t you spell it June, no ‘e’?’ And then John goes, ‘What does that mean?’ She goes, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Munn said. “I was like, ‘What is wrong with this woman?’”
“So for the next few weeks, she keeps pitching out other names to change the baby’s name. And I go, ‘Mom, you have to stop pitching out names. This is crazy.’ And then one day, it hits me,” said the mom of two. “So my mom loves to talk. She just talks.”
Munn realized that when they were in the car talking about names, it had been silent until her mom volunteered the story about being called June all the time.
“So I said, ‘Mom. I think I know what happened. Did you just want to talk that day? So you came up with this story that people call you June, but no one has ever called you June?’” said Munn. “She said, ‘Yes, people call me June.’ I said, ‘When?’ She goes, ‘In 1987, two women call me June.’”
“And I was like, you know what? It’s staying June and we’re not changing it. So yeah, she’s kind of in honor of my mother, but I hope she doesn’t grow up to be as big a liar,” she joked.
Read the original article on People
