Gwyneth Paltrow has a baby girl

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LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow has given birth to her first child, a baby girl named Apple Blythe Alison Martin.

The baby, weighing 9 pounds, 11 ounces, was born in a London hospital Friday after what Paltrow's husband, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, described as "a long labor." Mother and daughter were said to be doing fine.

"We are 900 miles over the moon, and we'd like to thank everyone at the hospital who have looked after us amazingly," Martin said in a statement released by spokesman Murray Chalmers.

Paltrow announced last December that she and Martin, 26, were expecting a baby.

The couple, who have been scrupulous about maintaining their privacy, were wed in December during a private ceremony in Santa Barbara.

The 31-year-old actress, who won an Oscar for "Shakespeare in Love," is the daughter of actress Blythe Danner and the late director Bruce Paltrow.

She hinted during an interview with W magazine earlier this year that she may do as her mother did and put her acting career on hold to raise her child.

"My mother turned down every fantastic movie there was," said Paltrow, who starred opposite her mother in last year's film "Sylvia." "She turned down these amazing things that would have made her a huge movie star."

I can not believe that she named her daughter after a fruit! What a loopy name for a sweet little baby.

I was about to post a message, and planned to have it say: "I can not believe that she named her daughter after a fruit! What a loopy name for a sweet little baby. "

But someone beat it to me

A sweet life for Gwyneth's daughter

By Rachel Sauer, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 18, 2004

If people assume the connotations of their names, what can we expect from little Apple, just beginning her life named for a very popular fruit?

Let us hope actress Gwyneth Paltrow and British rock singer Chris Martin considered that responsibility when they christened their baby Apple Blythe Alison Martin, born Friday in London.

Sweet little Apple, what is to become of you? Must your cheeks always be rosy? Must you find a best friend named Eve? Must you never have a nickname (because what is Apple, if not some trifling endearment bestowed on the toddler who will drink only apple juice from Pooh sippy cups)?

Consider what apples are: Delicious (mostly). Sweet (generally). Mellow harbingers of autumn. Versatile yet steady. So good in pies, so dependable, so common. Such convenient symbols in poems. So beautiful.

Apple Martin, a girl who keeps her room picked up and daydreams as she plays in the sun.

She could have been nothing but Apple. Certainly not Banana, the girl who drops out of community college after a semester. Certainly not Mango, who never comes home for Christmas. Peach Martin does nothing but sneak around with the wrong boys, and Kiwi blathers on and on about her blocked chakras.

So she's Apple, and consider the conversation where Gwyneth tells a friend on the phone, "Not much, just cuddling my lovely Apple." Or the terse, sleep-deprived spats between Gwynnie and Chris: "No, it's your turn to change Apple" or "Would you please just pick Apple up?"

Apple will be dressed in couture, most likely -- golden threads for a beautiful Apple. Much will be made of her blossoming.

She will be photographed in beaming grandma Blythe Danner's gentle arms, sweet Apple asleep in a cocoon of blankets. She will be pushed in a pram (surely Anglophile Gwyneth will call it a pram) along London sidewalks, mommy introducing Apple to the bigness and vividness of the world.

Apple, blessed by genetics and life's circumstances, but still just trying to figure it all out, like the rest of us. Spunky Apple, she's gonna make it.

Well it's no worse than Dweezil Zappa's daughter's name. Moonunit I believe is her name. LOL

That is Frank Zappa. His kids are Dweezle, Moon Unit, Ahmet.

Still, Apple is a bit out there. Like you are going to be Dr. Apple Martin. It is a name that is silly.

I think giving your child a stupid name is like child abuse. I don't care who her parents are, she is going to get teased about it for the rest of her life. What about when she grows up and has to go and get a job? The HORROR! What were they thinking?

Blythe or Alison? I like Ali. That's a nice nickname.

Ali or Allison is much better than Apple.

But think of all the possibilities for nicknames. Maybe they'll call her Granny Smith.