Country music star Granger Smith and his wife, Amber, are expecting a baby boy in August, and they have chosen a name that honors their late son, River.
In a YouTube video on Tuesday, Granger and Amber revealed that Maverick Beckham is an ode to River, who died in a drowning accident in 2019 at age 3.
The letters R, I and V appear in both names, Amber explained.
“I wanted this baby to have his own identity, and I didn’t want him to be so tied to River,” Amber shared. “But I did want him to have a little piece of his brother in his name.”
Granger, 41, noted that Beckham means, “home by the river.”
"I've liked the name Maverick my whole life," Granger said.
"It means independent and non-conforming," Amber added.
If the baby was a girl, they were going to name her Everleigh.
Granger and Amber are also parents of 9-year-old daughter London and 7-year-old son Lincoln.
The couple announced in March that Amber will give birth to their fourth child this summer.
“We’re pregnant,” Smith captioned an Instagram clip. “Life isn’t perfect. Sometimes it’s beat up and broken but it’s NEVER hopeless. God promises that. Our story isn’t finished yet, and neither is yours! Through our suffering and joy, God’s glory radiates through it all! A new Smith boy is due in August.”
Last year, the Smiths opened up about River’s drowning death on the 3rd Hour of TODAY.
“I was 20 feet away,” Granger recalled. “I was playing gymnastics with my daughter. He was outside of the locked gate with our other son. There wasn’t music playing; there wasn’t any kind of distractions. It was just a quiet, 7 p.m. summer evening. It was so silent. There wasn’t a splash; there wasn’t any kind of call for helps. I just saw him. I turned around, and I saw him.”
Amber reiterated that drowning isn’t noisy.
“It’s just so fast, and it’s so quiet,” she said. “It’s not like you see in the movies, splashing around. It’s just silent.”
Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death for children ages 1 to 4, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are approximately 300 drowning deaths of children younger than 5 each year in swimming pools, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
