Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, said her youngest daughter’s name, Solange, was inspired by a trip to France she took with her ex-husband Mathew Knowles.
The fashion designer, 70, mother of Beyoncé, 42, and Solange, 37, with Mathew, 72, explained the backstory of her youngest son’s name while appearing Thursday on The Vogue Podcast Summary.
“Solange came from… I went to Paris when I was 32… well, when I got pregnant with her,” Tina said. ‘I bought a book of baby names in Paris for my girlfriend and she was going to have a baby.
“And then the next year I ended up having a baby, so I dug out that old book.”
Tina said the book was published in French and the name caught her attention when she was studying it.
Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, 70, said her youngest daughter’s name, Solange, was inspired by a trip to France she took with her ex-husband Mathew Knowles, 72.
“Solange was conceived on the Nile in Egypt, and I thought I was going to have a boy and I wanted to name him Niles,” Tina said. “But I didn’t know this girl came here, and yes, that’s where I got her name from.”
Tina, who also spoke in the interview about the bullying Beyoncé suffered as a child, said she feels “names are important.”
Mathew and Tina Knowles exchanged vows in 1980, welcoming Beyoncé in 1981 and Solange in 1986.
Solange has spoken about the origins of her name in a 2017 chat with The standard while promoting his 2017 Orion’s Rise tour in support of his album A Seat At the Table.
“I had some revelations, in terms of my parents finding out that they conceived me in Egypt after visiting the pyramids of Giza,” Solange said, “and they connected with that and the Orion constellation that aligns with Giza.”
Solange, whose son Julez Smith, 17, was spotted earlier this month at the Met Gala, has a tattoo of the Orion constellation on her right arm.
Beyoncé has made references to Egypt in her material, including her 2019 song Nile from the album The Lion King: The Gift.
Tina said of her youngest daughter: “Solange was conceived on the Nile in Egypt and I thought I was going to have a boy and I wanted to name him Niles.”
Solange shared a photo posing with her mother and sister in September 2022.
Tina and Mathew separated in 2009 after she filed for divorce, which was finalized two years later amid news that Mathew was the father of a son named Nixon Knowles with actress Alexsandra White, born in February 2010.
Mathew married former model Gena Charmaine Avery in July 2013 in a ceremony that neither Beyoncé nor Solange attended.
Tina began dating Poltergeist actor Richard Lawson in 2013 and the couple married on April 12, 2015. She filed for divorce from him last summer after eight years of marriage.