Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey were a week into their relationship when they heard someone call the name “Matilda.”
“We looked at each other and it was like, ‘Would it be crazy to say if we had a baby we’d name her Matilda?’” Cuoco tells TODAY.com in an interview. “You know when you first start dating and you're so obsessed, and you’re planning your future children. It was that sort of thing.”
Cuoco and “Ozark” star Pelphrey met at the red carpet premiere of the Netflix drama in April 2022. Six months later, the couple announced they were expecting their first child together.
“When we got pregnant and we learned we were having a girl, we were like, ‘Oh my God — we have the name,” Cuoco recalls. “We actually kept her name a complete secret until she was born."
"And it's so her. She's such a Matilda," Cuoco adds.
Matilda Carmine Richie Pelphrey came into the world on March 30. “We are overjoyed and grateful for this little miracle,” Cuoco wrote on Instagram at the time.
"Tommypelphrey, didn’t think I could fall even more in love with you, but I did," she added.
The “Flight Attendant” actor says she was happy with her child-free life until she met Pelphrey. During a conversation with Emmy Magazine in May, Cuoco said that motherhood had been “not a goal of mine.”
“As a young girl I dreamed of it, but I became involved in my career,” she explained. Then, Pelphrey came along and everything changed. Suddenly, she said, all she wanted was a baby.
“It was instantaneous, ‘Oh my God, I want to have a kid with you,’” she recalled.
Matilda, now 7 months old, could follow in her parents’ footsteps and pursue an acting career.
“It’s in her genes; I don’t know how she won’t,” Cuoco told Emmy Magazine. “The child already thinks she’s the star of everything.”
Cuoco opened up exclusively to TODAY.com about Matilda’s name while promoting her partnership with Brooks Running. The “Big Bang Theory” alum credits the brand's Ghost Max series for relieving her foot pain.
“I worked out late into my pregnancy and my feet started hurting aggressively. I would go to bed crying at night. And my partner, Tom, has been wearing Brooks for years, and he was like, ‘Dude, you need to get on the Brooks train,’” Cuoco says. “Well, I bought my first pair and it was a game changer. Now it’s all I wear. They saved my feet.”
Earlier this year, Cuoco revealed she was suffering from “Mommy wrist” or “mommy thumb,” officially known as de Quervain tenosynovitis. The condition occurs with repetitive movements such as lifting, carrying or nursing an infant, according to the Mayo Clinic.