James Gunn may be the head of DC Studios, but there’s another public personality who has quite the admiration for one title in the company’s film slate.
Social media star Trisha Paytas made headlines last week after revealing that her third child’s name is Aquaman. Her son’s full name is Aquaman Moses Paytas-Hacmon, and the influencer explained on an episode of her popular Just Trish podcast that she chose the name after being a big fan of the comics and the accompanying movie, which starred Jason Momoa.
At Comic-Con, Gunn told Entertainment Tonight he had seen Paytas’ unique name for her baby, and admitted that he thinks it’s “cool.”
“I saw that, yes. I think that’s cool,” the Superman director said. “I mean, I hope he does OK in school. I had a hard time with the last name Gunn, [being called] like Tommy Gunn, BB gun, ray gun, I’m like, OK, we get it. Is the middle name Gary or something?”
The writer-director further questioned if Paytas was planning on giving him a nickname. “I mean, are they going to call him AQ? What are they going to call him?” he asked. “Won’t he get made fun of in school? Do kids make fun of kids anymore?”
When Paytas, who got her start on YouTube in the early 2010s through her unique — and controversial — content style, announced her son’s name last Tuesday, she admitted that she’s been a long-time Aquaman fan.
“I’ve been wearing Aquaman t-shirts for years,” she said on Just Trish. “I’ve gone to so many Comic-Con’s for Aquaman. And I really fell in love when we rewatched Aquaman. We watched all the Aquaman’s, I watched the cartoon. I was watching everything.”
Paytas reacted to Gunn’s reaction to her child’s DC-themed name during a Tuesday episode of her podcast, even noting that the director is “redeeming Aquaman” because of the fun nickname he suggested for her son.
“I think he’s redeeming Aquaman because everybody in the comments was like, ‘He gave Aquaman a nickname,’ and everyone was like, ‘Wait, that hits so hard,’” Paytas quipped. “And the nickname was AQ, and I was like, wait, AQ, so hard. Which I’m kind of like, OK, I’ll go with it.”
Despite some backlash, Paytas is no stranger to choosing unique baby names. Her first daughter is named Malibu Barbie and her second is Elvis, whom she shares with her husband, Moses Hacmon.