Skip to main content

With so many interesting families featured on TLC, it’s hard to know who’s worth watching. But fans have taken a particular liking to the Busbys featured on OutDaughtered. Adam and Danielle Busby have six daughters, one 8-year-old and a set of 4-year-old all-female quintuplets. And while their lives are incredibly hectic, they still have an ultra-loving and supportive relationship that their viewers adore watching.

Fans have a ton of questions for the Busbys, especially since the quintuplets are getting older and now heading off to pre-K and kindergarten. And it seems one question the parents get asked a lot is in regards to their kids’ names. Here’s how they came up with what they call each child.

How Adam and Danielle Busby settled on their oldest daughter’s name

Adam and Danielle have talked extensively about their pregnancy troubles. While their second bout of infertility resulted in five babies, they only had one child their first round — and that was Blayke. Blayke is the 8-year-old big sister of the group, and while the parents try to give her plenty of individual attention, she’s been the main help with the quintuplets since they were born. As for the name, it’s rooted in Danielle’s family history and what Adam and Danielle both like in baby names.

“We came up with the name Blayke because we both kind of always liked that unisex-type name,” Danielle explained in this video with Adam. As for Blayke’s middle name, Louise, that’s past down from Danielle’s grandmother. “My grandma was named Mary Louise and I always wanted to name my first daughter after my grandma,” Danielle continued.

They decided to give the twins names that began with vowels

It’s a lot harder to come up with five baby names than just one — and Adam and Danielle explained in the TLC video that they would go through all possible name combinations with their family members before the quints were born. “We would go through names — do you like this with that, what about this and that?” Danielle reenacted to the camera. And she then explained that once Olivia Marie was picked, she knew she wanted the identical twins of the group to have the names that started with vowels.

“Ava [Lane] and Olivia were the only two vowel letter-starting names, so we were like, ‘that’s gonna be the twins’ names,'” Danielle said. “We’re gonna name the identical twins Ava and Olivia — they’ll be the vowels.”

We don’t just know Ava and Olivia for their vowel names now that they’ve gotten to be bigger kids. In this blog post, Danielle explains they’re also the goofiest quints, too — and fans still have trouble telling them apart.

How the other 3 quints got their names

As for the other three quintuplets, it seems their names were chosen from a mixture of what the Busbys liked and from family names that were passed down. “Hazel Grace was a family name on the Busby side,” Danielle mentioned to TLC. As for Riley, the one quintuplet who’s already headed off to kindergarten, Danielle said that “Riley was a name that we both loved when we were having Blayke, so we got to use that.” And Riley’s middle name, Paige, comes from one of Danielle and Adam’s nieces.

The last name the couple picked out was Parker Kate. While the duo loved the name, Danielle wanted to hyphenate the name and make it all her first name, while Adam wanted Kate to be her middle name while Parker was just her first name. In the end, we know they settled on leaving Parker’s first name as just Parker — but Danielle still frequently calls the quint by her full name. “I still call her Parker Kate,” Danielle said. “And I call her that when she gets in trouble,” Adam added.

Fans seem to adore the girls’ names, too, as one mentioned in the comments of the video, “Can you imagine thst any of the girls were named differently? I can’t Imagine Hazel not being named Hazel or Riley not being Riley! There names are perfect for them! [sic].” We have to say, we totally agree!

Check out Showbiz Cheat Sheet on Facebook!

Best in Entertainment