Oti Mabuse shares sweet meaning behind baby daughter's name a year after 'traumatic birth'

Oti Mabuse has finally opened up about the sweet reason she and her husband, Marius Iepure, chose their baby daughter’s name.

The Dancing on Ice star, 34, welcomed her daughter last November and recently shared the sentimental story behind her name. While Oti has been candid about her journey through motherhood, she now revealed that the family’s special naming tradition was the inspiration. Reflecting on this, Oti explained that her mother, Dudu, played a major role in selecting the name.

She told Hello! Magazine: “My mother is the one who named her. My mum named all the children in the family. I think three months before she was born, the name was already set."

Oti shared that while she initially considered naming her daughter after herself, she decided to go with her mother’s choice, and they chose an additional name from Marius’s side once they saw their daughter.

She said: "I was going to name her my name and then I was like, 'OK, let me just share one,' and then we decided on the day once we saw her, her other name for my husband's side."

With her daughter’s first birthday coming up this month, Oti looked back on how much she’s grown: "We celebrate every single milestone. She is so cheeky. I see myself in her and I'm just like, 'Wow she's a force.' She's very clever."

She went on to say: "She's starting to walk. She's teething. She can speak, [she's] not articulate but she knows who is who already, she knows her name… She's quite advanced which we're really happy about for her level of prematurity."

The former Strictly Come Dancing judge previously shared details of her “traumatic birth,” revealing that her daughter was born “very premature” and spent six weeks in the hospital before finally being discharged just before Christmas. She shared that her 16-hour labour ended with her daughter being taken for tests right after birth.

Oti also revealed she diagnosed with sepsis during labour, and her daughter also had infections, resulting in a six-week stay in the NICU.

She opened up about the experience on the Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast, saying: “She was very premature, she came really, really early - unexpected premature which was a big, big shock.

“Going through that emotional trauma that you go through when you have a premature baby, and then being in hospital with the little one for six weeks and then finally coming out and having her home with friends and family over Christmas was really nice.”